The last bit of my childhood is hanging on for dear life. I’m watching it slowly, gracefully slip away. It is better this way, though I confess I do not like it.
My grandparents have begun the arduous process of packing up the Tennessee home they built, originally intending to live there till their last breath. So much in life has changed since then. Their daughters grew up and moved away, taking their own families with them. The town built up around them, bringing big-city conveniences to the small area... but when you turn onto Candies Creek Ridge Road, almost nothing has changed in thirty years. The same cow fields, worn-out barns, and barbed wire fences line the winding pavement and make you feel like some pieces of life let you hold them forever.
...Even though these walls will no longer welcome us for annual holidays and summers. As my grandparents attempt to pack their lives into boxes, I am packing up memories to take with me, to remember part of who I am.
…
It all starts with turning onto a gravel driveway, winding my way up into the trees. A left turn leads down to the field, while just around the bend to the right stands a beautiful brick and white house above a broad lawn.
In its infancy, these walls heard my mother come home from college screaming, waking her parents up to show them her sparkling engagement ring. Ladybugs snuck their way into the dormers in her bedroom and study room upstairs. Their red and orange bodies traced patterns on the walls and army-green carpet as she worked on homework and wedding planning. We still sleep in the ladybug bedrooms to this day.
Years passed, and it was my turn to christen the house for a generation of grandchildren. So began a domino effect that ended with nine monogrammed stockings hanging from the mantle and nine grandkids crowding by the Christmas tree for a picture. If I catch the living room atdusk when everything is still and quiet, my imagination draws the shadow of little me taking my first steps — really, my first run — around the old floral couch and cream rug.
Down in the field, my Papaw would kneel in the garden nurturing blueberry bushes, peanut plants, and every kind of vegetable. His patient figure mowed the field with a tractor, a straw hat protecting bent shoulders from the sun. The air smelled thickly of fresh grass and mint. A brush pile burned in the corner every fall. I’ve been told my grandmother accidentally seared her eyebrows on one such pile many years ago. She was rarely outside, but often in the kitchen prepping biscuits and gravy or spending her evenings telling bedtime stories about Speed Daddy (a spinoff of Lightning McQueen, of course).
I could talk of cousins weaving a four wheeler in and out of evergreen trees, yelling “cock-a- doodle-doo” at the wild turkeys (that was not me; I’m not that crazy), floating a canoe in the creek, and shooting an old .22 outback... but there is one main thing we always cherished throughout the years. It was a major highlight of vacations. It worked its way into the soul of the place, so this is what I want to remember the most:
There is a ping pong table in the basement.
It’s a normal table that anyone could have, on a tile floor with a long tube light dangling overhead — but to us, time here was worth so much more than time upstairs. It was a rite of passage for each grandkid to learn to play, always watching out for Papaw’s tricky serves. My oldest cousin and I spent hours playing ping pong as teenagers, discussing everything from middle school drama to our life values. That basement was a haven from the noise that came with a house full of family together for the holidays. We, along with our ping pong skills, grew over the years. Our conversation topics morphed with our stages of life. But our favorite paddles and the orange ping pong ball that looked like a basketball were there, year after year. It was a small constant that defied the other life changes.
Now that it is the house’s turn to be the one who changes, I almost feel betrayed. A new family will move in, create their own legacy there, and cut down the trees or repaint the dining room’s burgundy walls. Does the house not know that it holds some of the last physical remains of my childhood? Everything else has changed since then — including me.
...But a house is made for living. We cannot force stasis upon it forever.
I’ve always said it would be special if my future husband could visit this place before my grandparents needed to move. A piece of me is here that I would love for him to know. Then, he could envision what I mean when I reminisce about galloping across the green carpet playing Narnia. At this point, that is unlikely to happen. It may be just as good this way, because though walls carry memories, the real heart of a place is the people it shelters. Perhaps that is why I love the ping pong table so much. Lives merge into each other, changing together, creating love that transcends the space it was born in.
I expect one more chance to drive down Candies Creek Ridge Road before it becomes part of the family history book. I will pass the cows and barbed wire fences... turn onto a gravel driveway...and just around the bend…
Well, I’ll never quite be able to show you what’s around the bend. But I think you already know.