By the time you read this, I will be back from a short Caribbean escape from the cold and snow of winter. And given the complexity of composing an essay on my iPhone and sending it electronically from sketchy locations, I decided to republish my daughter’s prose, which appeared in The Focus on January 25, 2016.
Most writers yearn for their words to be read. And yet, many of us are hypercritical of our prose, especially when we reread past efforts.
And most parents are proud of their children, especially when they succeed. So this week I am doubly proud to republish my daughter’s essay, which she wrote as a senior in high school. Emily’s essay originally appeared in the Knoxville News Sentinel and is republished without any polishing.
I don’t have any high school essays. Actually, I only began “writing” late in life and never realized I had writing in my blood – at least until I reread Emily’s essay.
There’s a famous poem by William Wordsworth entitled “My Heart Leaps Up.” In the poem, Wordsworth pens, “The Child is Father of the Man.” Emily’s beautiful “Nostalgia” causes me to consider the roots of my writing and conclude that Wordsworth may have been right.
Nostalgia
by Emily Kate Ferguson (Fall 1996)
I almost didn’t go. But now I’m glad I did. It was an “open house” on that day, but open to anyone, everyone, not just to us anymore. My grandmother’s house. My mother’s childhood. My innocence. From “Granddaddy’s chair” to the rusted tin can that was always full of Hershey’s kisses and caramel candies, the place was unforgettable. An everlasting impression on my life, and I found myself on that day saying goodbye.
There are few things in this world today that one can count on. But even as a young child, I knew that every Sunday after church, I would have to fight my six cousins for the “rolling chair” (a plastic-covered secretary’s chair) to sit in for lunch at my grandmother’s kitchen table. The grown-ups would convene at the bigger table, just a window away, in the dining room. Sometimes we could hear five or six different conversations going on between our parents, aunts, uncles, great-aunts and -uncles, an occasional friend of someone, and our only Grandmother Jo.
After lunch my cousins and I would retreat to the second floor to play school or house in our mothers’ old bedrooms. I always insisted on being the teacher or the mother. On a nice day, we would play hide-and-seek in the peaceful trees below Kingston Pike. And often we would swing on the yellow and white teeter-totter or try to fish in the small pond facing Fort Loudoun Lake.
Anne was an only child and the oldest among the granddaughters. Next in age were Lauren and Kristin and me. Shortly after my arrival came Sarah, the only non-blonde in the bunch. Then my sister, Jenny, and the youngest of the seven, Joanna. I always loved Kristin best; even in her stage of turquoise eyeshadow and matching mascara, she was my hero.
Years went by, and the teeter-totter was taken down. And the rooms that had once magically transformed into classrooms and kitchens became quadrants of space we rarely saw anymore. Despite my growing, I remained dependent on the weekly reunion of family and friends to lift my spirit and warm my heart.
But this day was different. I was not there to have lunch or play school or watch MTV in my late grandfather’s brown recliner; I was there to say goodbye. I watched a new couple come into my family’s home and gaze eagerly at the building, making plans of their own for each room, each hallway, each corner.
Despite my sadness and feeling of intrusion, I was glad for my grandmother. This giant step she had taken led her to an environment surrounded with friends and without the burdens of a sixty-year-old three-story home. I should be glad, should I not? There would still be New Year’s Eve parties – making buckeyes and green punch with my cousins and Grandmomma Jo. There would still be the round, wooden table with the black rolling chair for my cousins and me at Sunday lunch. And conversations encircling the “grown-ups’ table” just a window away from us . . . but alas, it would be somewhere else.
It was the house of my mother’s childhood, the rooms of her and her three sisters’ teenage years, and the backyard of her wedding. It was also the house of many New Year’s Eve parties for my young cousins and me, the rooms of my and my cousins’ imaginations and the backyard of our first Easter egg hunts. And as time progressed, as it cruelly did and still does, the monument of my childhood became merchandised.
Some say it is solely people who make memories. Only living creatures can act, love, remember. But I say something was and is alive in that house today . . . something that was present everyday we were there and even when we were not. Perhaps it was the love and conversation we all shared around the dining room and kitchen tables. Or maybe it was the spirit of relatives who had passed on, leaving more than their translucent love – like the fuzzy, brown La-Z-Boy – to symbolize their everlasting presence. Or possibly it was the innocence of two generations of children preserved safely in the essence of that house.
I took one last look at the now-bare and lonely place . . . Nostalgia overwhelmed me. As I stared at the corner by the window I remembered sitting with my grandmother at her piano. She would play songs while I would pretend to play along on the upper keys . . . “How Much is That Doggy in the Window?” . . . The unforgettable smelly, brown carpet where my cousins and I would wrestle and do somersaults still lingered in the air . . . I swear I could almost hear her calling us for Sunday lunch . . .
