I really wish I could remember more about my dad's house. I've been by it several times. It has grey siding and white trim. A quiet unassuming little home.
I have very distant memories of being in it just after my aunt and uncle moved out of it. The house was small. There was a large kitchen, a front room, a small bathroom and a bedroom. Maybe there was another bedroom upstairs? I don't even remember being upstairs.
Mostly I just remember the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen. And I remember a lot of aqua. Certinaly the whole house wasn't painted aqua but it is the one color that stands out from that visit. Perhaps the bathroom or the front room was a different color--pink or yellow?
In the early years of dad's life there wasn't a bathroom. They had an outhouse. That still amazes me.
My dad is the youngest of six children. Their father was killed in an acccident a few months before my dad was even born. His mama was left to raise her kids in a country that was still new to her even though she had been here some ten years by then.
When my dad's Mama died, everything in the house ended up going to my dad's brother. There are few items that the kids have to hold onto from their days in that house. I don't have any idea what happened to those few precious items. And I guess it isn't really all that important. It's just stuff. The one piece that my dad had in the attic for years was Mama's sewing machine. I hoped to get it one day. But he passed it along to his sister. One of her kids helped to restore it. I got a chance to see it the other day. It is beautiful now. But even better was the smile on my aunt's face when we were all oooo-ing and ahh-ing over it.
Just as my mom's house built her, my dad's house built him. The lessons were similar--work hard, do your best and pray. He learned that it's not the material things that make you. It's the way you live that makes you.
Humble beginnings. Strong life lessons. A prince of a dad.
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