THE HOUSE AT 25

by Lydia Bogar

I can return to the house at 25 because, when I cleaned it out and sold it three years ago, I did so with respect. Respect for the efforts taken by Daddy to buy it. The efforts of Mom, with love and support from Papa, to keep it. Respect for the gardens, the contents of the cabinets, the memories in the cellar. I can sit in the zero-gravity chair at Liza’s house, in my brother’s old room, enjoy the reflexology, and not be intimidated by the room that was his space. The best part is that I can easily say I am going to Liza’s house.  Not home.  Not Mom’s.  Not my old house.

The house is full of life again, a life of a different kind.  A single woman gardener who cooks from scratch but who is not my mother. In at least a hundred ways, she is not my mother.  A nurse.  A massage therapist.  A lesbian.  And yet, she is like her.

Liza has a few of Mom’s cookbooks. It seemed the right thing to do. She keeps them in the same place on the counter where Mom kept hers.  Kindred spirits.  Since Liza believes in and practices alternative, holistic medicine, I wonder if Mom will communicate with her from heaven.  Absolutely in heaven, nothing half way for Ruthie.  Nothing  halfway, I suspect, for Liza either.

Liza is not an ordinary nurse but a holistic nurse working with distressed patients in a community clinic.  In it for the long haul. She is fearless and focused, which at her core, was also my mother. The mother, the widow, the only child.  The survivor.

Two dogs, one old Bassett and one very spunky mongrel. There is dog damage at 25–chewed baseboard and door trim.  A cracked window not repaired.  The garage no longer holds my mother’s odds and ends but Liza’s odds and ends, mostly for her gardening. I have not been in the cellar yet, but it isn’t necessary for me to go there. I know this house, every bit of it, and yet, it is no longer mine.  Mine is at number 8. Mine for 44 years, twice the length of time that I lived at 25.

Twenty-five.  Written out, it doesn’t taste different.  With the exception of the dog fence, the yard looks the same.  Maybe when those big ugly old pines come down, it will look different. The Shasta daisies look the same. The Rugosa roses that trail the ranch fence. The flamboyant Scotch Broom that welcomes spring. The shed–with its tired, ragged doors open–looks abandoned. The birdhouse that I made at camp in 1958 is no longer on the south side of the shed. It is on a tree at number eight. The dogs and cats that live at twenty-five run in and out of the shed, taking refuge from the rain or heat, soon to be snow and cold.

Scout, the frantic Beagle mix, barely reminds me of Bobo, my first dog.  My clearest image of Bobo is a small black and white photo of her with Daddy.  Poor, silly old girl. She kept Mom company as the nest emptied.

That thought reminds me of the crazy Malamute that Steven adopted when he got out of the Air Force in 1973. That dog chewed the headboard and then the smaller, wagon-wheel footboard. What a sad sight that was.

Dogs own houses and people.

Our own “Renaissance Woman,” Lydia has done everything from teaching English to doing volunteer emergency service.  She says she “hails from Woosta– educated at BOLLI.”

MY HEROES

by Lydia Bogar

Two weeks ago, the media  reminded us of our history–particularly our veterans, living and dead, who gave this country their courage and strength.  Among them, my father who joined the American Army in 1939, a year after his arrival from Budapest.  I have bronzed in my mind the image of him in uniform holding his DD214,  the honorable discharge certificate that entitled him to his prized citizenship.

But I am also thinking about the everyday heroes around us.  The ones we need to take notice of and silently appreciate as they weave in and out of our lives.  Truly hometown heroes.

The mechanic down the street who replaces a burned-out brake light at no charge, on a Saturday, in the rain.

The nice old guy at the hardware store who laughs with me when I tell a blonde joke.  He then easily threads the new line into the weed whacker and thanks me for coming in.

The young couple across the street who brush the snow and ice off the top of my car because I have lost another inch of height since last winter.

The  neighbor with the lilting Irish brogue who cuts my lawn and brings in the mail while I am burying my mother.

Heroes like these help to keep our small town  safe even as the population doubles and the dump is no longer open for Saturday morning chats.  I’ll never be a Townie, not even after 46 years, but I won’t be at home anywhere else either.

Our own “Renaissance Woman,” Lydia has done everything from teaching English to doing volunteer emergency service.  She says she “hails from Woosta–educated at BOLLI.”