My Life Before

A long time ago that will forever feel like yesterday

When I get asked about my childhood, the first thing I always talk about is how my mom and I lived with my grandparents (Nammi and Pop) from when I was two until I was around seven. And, even though we moved out, it seemed like I spent more time there than anywhere else in the world. Somehow my brain seems to have forgotten most things from before I was sixteen, but I can remember my daily, uneventful life with them like it was yesterday.

If I close my eyes, I still see our house so clearly I forget I haven’t stepped foot inside in over twelve years. My grandparents moved into the house in ‘98, so it wasn’t my mom or uncles’ childhood home, but it was mine. My favorite place was the family room. It was the center of the house, this huge, open room with one wall of windows and french doors leading out to the deck, and two skylights that sat high up in the half-pitched ceiling. It led perfectly into the kitchen which meant we had one wide-open heart of our home that was always flooded with warmth. At the end opposite the kitchen was a giant stone fireplace. There was a low, stone bench that wrapped around it which was Pop’s cause for panic once grandkids came into the picture. “Watch the fireplace!” (yelled in a stern yet nervous tone) became the catchphrase of the house any time we were playing and goofing around within three feet of it and we were always warned about how we were most definitely going to crack our heads open on it, even though not even the clumsiest grandchild ever did.

Most memorable were my days of going to half-day kindergarten. Before leaving the house I would check on my goldfish, Stanley, walk down to the end of the block, get on the school bus, and be on my way. It felt like far too many times I would come home to find that something had happened to Stanley during the measly four hours I was gone, which would then result in Nammi and I venturing out to get Stanley II or Stanley III. My fish were always named Stanley (after my favorite TV show character at the time Stanley, a boy who had a goldfish. Why I didn’t name my fish after the fish in the show is beyond me). Recently as I had been thinking about my childhood goldfish, I realized that my grandparents had to have replaced more fish than just my known Stanleys, so really just how many Stanleys there were, we will never know. After taking care of whatever my Stanley needs were for the day, I would head down to the basement and put on Monsters Inc. or Lilo and Stitch to watch on repeat until dinner.

Our familial daily routine also consisted of me listening for the garage door opening right before dinnertime and knowing I had about two minutes before Pop walked through the door. I would bolt to the hallway closet where he always hung up his jackets, carefully slide open the door that always fell off the track, squeeze myself in between the wall and the vacuum cleaner, and wait to decide if I wanted to jump out and scare him when he opened the door or wait until he asked Nammi where I was. And everyday, Pop would come in from work and walk to the hall closet, open the door and hang up his jacket, act like he didn’t know I was there, and put on the most convincing show whenever I decided to jump out at him. He was always good at that, putting on a show to make me laugh and smile.

Then it would be time for dinner, some of the eventful times of our lives together. One night, while we were all eating dinner a single piece of spaghetti with tomato sauce accidentally fell into Pop’s iced tea as he was getting himself more pasta. Of course we all saw it and of course we all laughed about it, and, of course, Pop acted like it wasn’t an accident at all. Hadn’t we ever tried iced tea with spaghetti? Everyone knows it’s delicious. To our astonishment, he took a sip and we all started cracking up. So, he added more spaghetti into his iced tea and fully committed to the bit. We were crying from laughing so hard, but this was just a typical night at our dinner table.

On any given evening, but especially those on the weekends where I would come visit after we moved out, Nammi, Pop, and I would be listening to Pandora on the TV. Favorite songs of ours included 30,000 Pounds of Bananas (ONLY the live version) and W.O.L.D by Harry Chapin, Burning Love by Elvis, and Cuando Me Enamoro by Andrea Bocelli. Pop and I would dance around and put on a show for Nammi and occasionally we would get her up to dance too. Most nights consisted of at least one long segment of a one-girl show for both of them, where I would run around and dance and be as weird as I wanted.

My life before has been gone for about eight months now, but also thirteen years, but it will forever feel like yesterday.