Things Make Life Better, Not Best

It was at a cookout that I heard the talk. One young woman with two children said, “I wish we could afford a bigger house, or at least new dining room furniture.”

Her friend, with a 2-year-old said, “I know, we’ve just got to get a garage. Our house has just no storage, we are so crowded. . . .”

From then on, they all talked about what they wanted and what they didn’t have.

And I know their longing stems from the heart. I know that when you work hard and have children you want a return on your labors. I also remember when I was 25, I longed for a four-bedroom house. I had four children and a visiting mother. I never got the extra bedrooms.

I understand the feeling for things. And yes, things can make your life better, but they don’t always make it best.

On the way home from the cookout, I got to thinking about a house I loved so much. I have never been back to it since we moved away from that small Western town, but even now it can make me tear up. The past doesn’t always recede.

When I see a picture of it, even in my mind’s eye, a deep hurtful nostalgia washes over me. I loved that place, and I have lived many places.

I am still homesick for that small house, our first, and one that was bulging with people usually.

And I long for it more in the summer for some reason, maybe because it had large windows that brought the sunshine inside.

The house was made of tacky asbestos siding and had an ugly carport that was full of bikes, broken lawn mowers and kids’ toys--the house was small.

I try not to look back. I realize my longings are for something that once was and will never be again.

How immature of me to have a flight of fantasy. I live in a nice house now; it has air-conditioning, a garbage disposal, a fireplace and flower beds. The children are grown and we are alone. We have what 30- and 40-year-old parents long for--peace.

We have matching dining room chairs now, but they are not filled with children day after day.

I know what my trouble is: The house of 37 years ago is the house in which we started out. We were very crowded, and when my mother came to stay for a few months at a time, we were more crowded.

We had no family room. We lived in our living room. The kids shared rooms, and there was no privacy.

But that old house had constant laughter, continuous loud music, the telephone ringing, coats thrown over chairs, cars parked outside. Spaces were filled with kids of all ages. We didn’t care.

And sure, there were occasional spats. Popcorn, an open peanut butter jar and cheap perfume from the girls’ rooms mingled with the weird lint fragrance of the old clothes dryer that labored every day.

I wish I could tell young people who long for better houses that a new deck, another bathroom and larger kitchens are not always the things that make a house a home. It’s the loved ones inside who bring about the theater of happiness and keep the daily drama moving.

Even the constant banging of the always-off-the-track screen door is now a sweet memory.

And today, I am wondering if the yucca is in bloom in the scraggy back yard of that old house.

But most of all a shout after school at the front door, sometimes sullen, sometimes joyous, “Mom, I’m home!” brings back a yearning.

That was living. That’s what I think I miss most.