Memories Are Made of This

So it was a nice post Father's Day at Villa Wifey. I walked 6.5 miles in the am, having a nice chat with some friends along the way.  There was a brief nap, and then a movie Wifey and I watched together, "Richard Jewel," about the poor schlemiel blamed for the Atlanta Olympics bombing. We both enjoyed it -- that Clint Eastwood can still make a good move at nearly 90.

I got a Wayfair package I had ordered: new pillows. As I have been doing the bed laundry during the pandemic, I noticed the rather, um, gross condition of our old, sweat stained pillows, and bought replacements -- bamboo memory foam. They came all flat and rolled up, and required short stints in the dryer to plump them up. They are indeed quite comfortable.

Such is life in quarantine. Getting new pillows is actually a thing...

I had been asked to set up a Zoom for Mike and his crew for Mondays, and I did. Alas, Mike and Loni bugged out, since it was their boy Chris's birthday, and Jeannine, his sister, had a Publix trip. Rob, who attended last week, needed more time to write sappy love stuff on FaceBook (tm), and so it was a small gathering of Jeff, Lili, Paul, Darriel, and Wifey and me.  It was very nice, actually -- Wifey rarely makes appearances at these Zooms, and she enjoyed catching up with the group.

Afterwards, D2 FaceTimed me returning from a trip to the dog park, and told us about another house she and Jonathan would check out. Wifey asked me the square footage of our last house, the one destroyed in Andrew and rebuilt completely, and I didn't recall. So I went on Zillow, and found the ad to sell it from 2015. Turns out the place was about 2700 square feet.

As a light joke, I sent the ad to D2 and Jonathan as a place to consider, though they'd sooner locate to our most suburban part of Miami than they would camp outside.

But the joke turned lovely. D2 sent it to D1, and the two of them began reminiscing about happy childhood memories of that house. D1 lived there from age 2, and it was the first house for D2 -- the place we brought her to after joining the band at South Miami Hospital. When the Ds were three and 6 months, Hurricane Andrew knocked it down around us. D1 would tell people that her house was "mistroyed."  I always preferred that neologism after that.

Wifey supervised the rebuild, and we went home in March of '94, with a 5 year old D1 and 2 year old D2. It was their home until we moved in February of '01, so a lot of childhood was spent there.

Each of the Ds rattled off happy memories, and Wifey and I added to the list -- favorite hiding spots during hide and seek, the bedroom shelves that held their Beanie Baby collections, the living room where I would dance with them to Tom Petty on the CD player.

The memories warmed Wifey and me. I thought, in contrast, of the scene in Forrest Gump, where Jenny threw rocks at her childhood home, as it was the scene of abuse and torture for her.

We were fortunate to have happy times at the Ds' childhood houses...

Now D1 and Joey get to make their own sweet memories in their beautiful house situated among the ancient live oaks in NE Miami. And D2 and Jonathan will buy their own place too, someday, though they may keep renting for awhile until they find just the right house.

Our old across the street neighbor was a Jamaican Chinese family. The Dad hit it big in the health care business, and they moved to Gables Estates before Andrew. The house had a lot of storm damage, though not as much as ours, and they listed it for sale. Our dear friends Mike and Loni made an offer, and it was far below what the sellers wanted.

But they ended up taking the price. I remember telling the Mom how happy I was -- dear friends were moving right across the street, and D2 and Amanda would indeed to go on to have a wonderful shared childhood. They're still close today.

And the Mom told me that in her Chinese culture, a house was more than a building -- it had a spirit, either good or negative. And that house had a good one -- she happily raised her family there, and she felt she owed it to the house to sell to another nice family -- it was worth taking less money.

I always found that charming.  We sold the Falls house to a nice woman -- an exec at a local hospital -- and she put a lot into it -- inviting us to a party after her renovations were done. She sold at a huge profit right before the real estate crash of '06.

I don't know who lives there now, but I am thankful for the wonderful years we spent there. And last night was a delightful trip down that lane of memory.