The House on Ridge

As an adult, I remember the joy I felt when I bought my first home. Though it was only a townhouse purchased during my unsuccessful first marriage, I remember the home fondly. I have photographs of every room and still feel proud at that milestone in my life.

I do not, however, remember moving into a house as a child. I was three years old when my parents purchased the house my mother has just sold. The house on Ridge Drive Park is the only home I ever knew growing up - the house that came to be known as “Ridge” - and I lived there longer than any of my four older siblings.

As my siblings moved out I moved from sharing a bedroom with my sister (nine years my senior), to the small room off the kitchen, then back upstairs to my elder sister's room, and then back to the original bedroom I started off in. That room came to be known as “The Red Room” because my sister had chosen some funky red, black and blue paisley wallpaper in the 70's which remains on the walls to this day (until the new owners move in because I have no doubt they will change it).

The room off the kitchen became Mom's sewing room. My older sister's bedroom was my grandmother's room during the years she lived with us for six months at a time. After Grandma died that room became my father's den.

The one bedroom I never called my own was my brothers' - first my oldest brother's, then the youngest brother's, then it became my mother's den (known as “The Green Room” with its sage walls and forest green furniture.).

So you could say I moved around a lot as a child, yet never left the house - a house that I don't think I really appreciated until now, 42 years later.

Our house was not just four walls and a roof, it was a home; a home where five children lived, and thirteen grandchildren visited often. A home my mother nurtured with her talents for sewing curtains, growing plants and shopping for bargains. A home my father filled with pictures and books, music and laughter.

My father passed away two years ago. The large 2-storey house became too much for my mother to maintain so she made the decision to sell - which she did within a couple of months. This happened way too fast for me; I was losing the only home I knew growing up. Gone are the days of family gathered around the dining room table sharing food and drink and many jokes. Gone are the days of Christmases by the fireplace and a floor covered in gift wrapping shreds. Gone are the days of Mom cooking up some grand meals in the kitchen, or Sunday's bacon and eggs brunch. Gone are the strains of Bach or Brahms streaming from the living room stereo. Gone are Saturday nights with Dad watching Hockey Night in Canada on TV.

Even simple sounds like hearing the back door being locked when my parents returned from an evening outing and the gentle thud of the hall closet door closing followed by the hall light popping on as my father made his way upstairs, are memories from my teen years that are so vivid. The house echoes with laughter - my father's guffaws, my brother's cackles, my sisters' chuckles, even my mother's silent smiles can be heard in the shadows of my mind. I can still hear my brother pounding out the Scott Joplin hit “The Entertainer” on the piano, and my father correcting my mistakes as I played “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and “The Love Scene from Romeo and Juliet”. I am sure there were some sad times, some angry times, but I hear no echoes of those.

As a child I hung bedsheets for walls along the clothes line of the screened-in porch and played house with my friends. Or I set up my own Barbie home underneath the ping-pong table in the basement. On hot summer days Mom would make chocolate milkshakes for Dad and me to slurp through straws as we played Crazy Eights out in the yard.

Dad had his electric hedge trimmer he used to keep the bushes perfectly shaped, a rubber snake on the fence to ward off pesky squirrels - it didn't work - and red geraniums in the garden. He once tried to convince my friends that our geraniums were special: they grew cucumbers. They didn't believe him until he uncovered the green vegetables he had hidden earlier in the day.

When we first purchased the house two blue spruce trees stood proudly on either side of the front porch. They were not quite as tall as the house. One of them had an open back which became a great hiding place for me and my friends when we played hide-and-seek “until the street lights came on”. Those trees grew well the past roof of the house, so they had to be removed. Gardens of flowers and shrubs took their place. Red roses climbed up the wall outside the dining room window. I didn't much like the ivy that clung to the outside walls as they attracted bees, but the leaves kept the house cool in the summer. Eventually the vine encasing the house was ripped from the walls allowing us to see the real house that had been hidden for so many years.

The house is now empty as furniture, housewares, photos and momentos have been distributed among family members. There is no room for it all in Mother's two bedroom suite at the retirement residence. What I have acquired I will treasure with fond memories - memories of a family in a house that was our home; a home called Ridge.