by Donna Hruska

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Happy Housewarming, Mama! There you are, bustling cookies and cake about, filling the coffee cups and punch bowl when you should be sitting down, enjoying your party. I don’t suppose you’ll ever know that behind the smile on my face, the happy tears are pushing to be free.

I remember another house—a house that smelled of homemade soup and pumpkin pie when we came home from school on winter afternoons, that was filled with little sounds, like the whirr of the sewing machine and rustle of taffeta as you hurried to finish a fairy princess costume for a stage struck junior thespian. That house had the feel of fresh laundered sheets and the shiny look of polish on the furniture and wax on the floors. But when you asked me a moment ago if I minded terribly that the house of my childhood was gone, replaced by one that is new, modern and devoid of memories, I was honest when I said no.

For there are other memories, Mama, pulled from the cubbyholes of my mind—little things that were stored away when I was too young to recognize their meaning. The magazines on the coffee table were always house and garden magazines, bursting with multi-colored photographs of beautifully decorated homes. You never threw one away. They were so full of ideas, you said—ideas that you rarely had a chance to put into practice. I remember shopping trips for school clothes when we’d gaze through the furniture store windows, then stop in, “just to look around” you’d say. There was the grand plan you devised when the venetian blinds and swag draperies were so out of style and shabby. There would be new draw draperies and wall-to-wall carpeting. The chairs would bloom with new upholstery and the end tables would be relegated to the basement, replaced by new ones with a glowing fruitwood finish. It was a beautiful plan. You managed to get the new draperies, pale blue ones that drew with such a subdued rustle of quality. But your daughters’ college educations interfered and it was four years before the furniture went to the upholsterer and eight before the wall-to-wall carpeting was installed. By that time the new had worn off the draperies and the bloom on the upholstery had begun to fade.

I know it mattered to you. I recognize now the look of wistfulness, fleeting though it was, as I see you again in my mind’s eye, thumbing through those magazines from the coffee table.

How could I mind, as I watch you showing off the lazy susan in the corner cabinet of your new kitchen? You run your hands over upholstery of a quality you never had before. I look around me and I see new beauty laced with refurbished old treasures, and I am glad. For it is all new and lovely at the same time—you don’t have to wait any longer.

I see something else, too—perhaps the greatest gift you ever gave me—a recipe for happiness. During all those years, I know you yearned for elegant things you could not have; yet were always happy. You were so full of hope. You would pause as you thumbed through a magazine and say, “Now here’s an idea! We could do this in the bathroom.” We’d come out of the furniture store and you’d comment that “those tables would look just right beside the sofa.” Never mind that those dreams seldom materialized. You were so busy giving, you had no time for resentment or bitterness.

I cannot despair for the house of my childhood. It will always be with me, with all its scents and sounds intact, ready to be pulled out and enjoyed any time I need it. Added to it will be a new house where the floors shine without waxing, you never need bend to look in the oven door and the happiness flows on forever.

Dear Mama, happy housewarming!

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