About the Author: Cierra Mincher (Creative Writing, Class of 2017) writes all the time when inspiration takes hold, which could be found anywhere and everywhere. She writes short stories, poems, and creative fiction from observances of everyday life.  She is currently enrolled in SVC’s Shires Press Publishing Program to publish her first book through the Northshire Bookstore in May of 2017. She is hoping to continue on this path of writing and become a famous author someday.

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This is Home

Cierra Mincher

Sometimes I come out here to write. Sometimes I stay inside. But today the weather is nice. The wind is blowing gently and the sky is blue. There are puffy white clouds all around. I step out onto the porch with my plaid, fleece shirt. It’s heavy enough over my tank top to keep the wind from chilling me. I look around. Open space, a field filled with grass, and beyond that, a row of trees. They’re big pines and some oaks. It was always nice when I was younger to go out and explore what was in those woods. When we were done exploring, we would always come back to the house for some lemonade and cookies. Gram and Pa were the best. They were always treating us kids the best. There was always so much to do when we were here, and yet a lot of the time, all we did was sit on the front porch and enjoy being together.

Gram was always sitting in her rocking chair. It still sits here. It used to be this soft, golden brown color. Gram said it was white oak, but at that time I couldn’t tell the difference between that and maple and regular oak, so I never really listened. I just knew it was made of wood. But it was a beautiful chair, it lasted a long time before it ever started creaking. I assumed at that point, Gram had rocked in it so much that the wood was starting to fall apart right under her. She said it just meant that it was broken in.

Anyway, Gram would sit there every time we were outside. Some days she would sit there and knit or crochet, some days she would sit there and work on her artwork, some days she would sit there and read, and other days, she would just sit there and rock with the sun shining down on her. One day, my little brother, sister, and I were all playing in the yard off the porch. Gram had asked Pa to paint the birdhouse he had made for her. She wanted it to be an eggshell blue, so he went down to the store after picking us up from Dad’s house and he went and bought some paint for Gram. He came back with it and she was so excited that she hustled into the house and grabbed that birdhouse up off the counter and hustled back outside. I don’t know if I had ever seen Gram move so fast before. But anyway, Pa opened the can of paint and took a stick and started mixing it around some before he took a brush and started painting it in the lawn. Gram had taken to her natural spot in the rocking chair. It had been such a beautiful day, quite like this one was.

I remember it was about noon and Pa had taken a break from his first coat on the birdhouse, he said it needed time to dry before he put a second coat on, and Gram said that was the perfect time for us to take and get lunch. They had both gone into the house, Pa washing his dirty hands and Gram starting lunch for all of us. They really worked well together. Little Marie and I had followed in the house after inspecting the birdhouse, but little Tommy stayed outside a while longer until he was called in by Gram to sit down for a sandwich. We all sat down and held hands while Pa recited a prayer to the Lord to thank him for our lunch. I couldn’t understand why Pa was always praying, he never went to church that I knew of, and he never read from The Bible, but I guess he had something to be thankful for and that was his way of showing it.

Well, we finished our lunch and drank our lemonade, and when we had cleaned up the plates, we headed back outside, but not before we filled our glasses with some more of Gram’s homemade lemonade. I think it was the best lemonade I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve tried remaking the recipe and there’s always something wrong with it. I do the same thing Gram did, I follow the recipe to a T – but still, there’s something missing. Maybe it’s because Gram is no longer here making it for me. I’m not sure. But we headed back outside with our drinks and when we came out the door, there was Pa, looking down on that chair. He was struck into silence. Marie, Tommy, Gram, and I came out in a line right behind him. I couldn’t tell why Pa had stopped on the porch, but Gram noticed, and so did Tommy. I remember Gram and Pa looking back and forth at each other wondering when somebody had had the time to throw some paint on Gram’s rocking chair. They looked at all us kids.

“Who put that paint on this chair?” Pa asked. He eyed us, each one of us. It hadn’t been a hard question, there was nothing to be afraid of, but we knew somebody was in trouble. Marie and I looked back and forth at each other but we kept our mouths shut.

“I just wanted to see what it was like to paint.” Tommy spoke up.

Pa looked back at Gram and they both sighed. Pa kneeled down in front of Tommy.

“Why didn’t you ask to help me with the birdhouse?”

Tommy sighed and looked down away from Pa.

“I didn’t want to help. I wanted to paint my own thing.”

“Why Gram’s chair though Tommy?” He asked softly.

Tommy looked around avoiding Pa’s question for what seemed like forever.

“I don’t know.”

Pa stood back up and took Gram’s hand. They looked at each other and then Gram let go of Pa’s hand and she walked over to the steps and picked up the paint bucket. She brought it over and set it down next to the chair. Then she convinced Tommy to come over and picked up a paintbrush, handing it to him.

“Well, we need to finish the job now Tommy. This chair can’t be brown and blue.” And she smiled at him.

Tommy smiled back and began slinging the brush back and forth over the arm of the chair and over the seat and across the other arm of the chair. Pa went back inside to grab a few more brushes and he handed them to Gram, keeping one for himself to finish the birdhouse. Tommy never did get in trouble for what he did. I couldn’t believe that Pa and Gram didn’t get angry at him. But since then, I’ve realized that Gram wasn’t that type of person. She loved that chair, but not because it was White Oak, but because it was her chair. She liked the way it felt when she sat in it, she had told me there was something magical about it. Now that I think about it, she was right.

I always felt something special when I sat on Gram’s knee and she was in the chair. Since that day, the chair has felt very special to me. Perhaps, because it was Gram’s chair. It’s where I remember her.

It’s been twenty years now, and that chair is still sitting here on the porch. The sun has bleached the color right out of it, so now it’s this old white chair that rocks back and forth when the wind blows. Like today, the chair has been gently moving back and forth, creaking every so often while I’ve been sitting inside. On these days, I can feel Gram here. It wasn’t long after Tommy painted the chair when Gram got sick and was hospitalized. They said she had bronchitis and pneumonia. It was hard for Gram to breathe for a really long time. She was always coughing and wheezing; I hated seeing her like that. I just wanted her to get better. Pa used to sit with her when he could, but the doctors said they didn’t want him coming down with it because he was very susceptible to the virus due to his age.

I sat down and prayed one night after we left the hospital. We had taken Pa back to the house, but we couldn’t leave so we stayed with him. He tried staying awake, but he was exhausted, and mom said that his age made him very tired as well. She said he was emotionally drained. But after Pa went to bed, mom and dad tucked us in and after they left, I waited for Marie and Tommy to fall asleep. Then I crawled out of bed and I got down on my knees and I talked to God. I remember that Pa thanked him when we had lunch, and I thought that maybe I should thank God too. I thought maybe if I thank him for giving me Gram and Pa and Marie and Tommy and mom and dad, then maybe I could ask him to make Gram feel better. So I did, and then I crawled back into bed. I laid there staring at the ceiling for a while, and then I must have fallen asleep, because I remember waking up to Dad pulling me out of the bed and tucking me inside his arms. He had grabbed my blanket and wrapped that around me and then carried me down to the car where Marie and Tommy were still sleeping. Mom and Pa were there too and I could hear Pa breathing real heavy and sniffing his nose like he was crying.

I tried acting like I was asleep the whole car ride, but my curiosity got the best of me because after a little bit I sat up slowly and peeked out the window to see if I knew where we were going. Mom looked back and rested her hand on the back of my head.

“Lay down sweetheart. Get some rest,” she said.

I looked up at her and then back out the window, trying to make out where we were going.

“But I wanna know where we’re going,” I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper.

Mom sighed and looked over at Pa who was trying to hold back his tears. His hand was raised up to his face and he was holding a tissue under his nose.

“We’re going back to see Gram. Now lay down and get some rest.”

She ran her fingers through my hair and gently pushed me back down against Marie. I lay down looking up at her, trying to keep my eyes open. I wanted to be awake when we got there, but I fell asleep again.

I remember waking up when we pulled into the parking lot. The car door had opened and the engine had been shut off. Mom told me to get out quietly and keep the blanket wrapped around me because it was still chilly out. I hadn’t realized until I got out that dad had glided slippers onto my feet before he got me out of bed. Mom picked up Marie when I got out and dad picked up Tommy from his side of the car, they were both still sleeping, and they carried them both in the hospital doors. Pa led the way up to Gram’s room. He went in first and Mom and Dad and I stayed outside. I looked up at Mom then.

“Why are we standing out here?” I whispered.

“Pa needs to see Gram by himself sweetheart. This is very hard for him,” she whispered back. I could see tears forming in her eyes. She looked over at Dad and he gave her a sympathetic look.

“I don’t understand,” I said to them. We then walked over to the couches in the waiting area and Mom and Dad sat down with Marie and Tommy in their laps. They were quiet and whispered while they explained that Gram was dying right now. She had woken up and talked to a nurse that night, asking that we all come over for her. I guess Gram had told the nurse that she needed to see us before she died. I sat there very quiet and still for the rest of the time until Pa came out. He was coughing and heaving and crying very loudly, but he was covering his mouth with the tissue so as not to wake up Marie and Tommy. Mom started crying then. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. She laid Marie down next to Dad and went over to hug Pa. He cried into her shoulder and she cried into his. I remember watching them and not knowing what to think. I didn’t realize at that time that Gram being dead meant I would never see her again.

After that, it all seemed very surreal. We were all very quiet in the house and we never stepped outside unless Dad went to go check the mailbox or Mom had to run down to the store to buy groceries. Pa didn’t really do much, or say much. He sat in his room most mornings and mom would bring him up breakfast. Most of the food would still be sitting there when he came down in the afternoon. He would go into the kitchen and make himself some coffee and a slice of toast and then sit down at the dining room table alone, and that’s where he would stay until dinner. He would sit there and look at the wall, or maybe out the window a few times. Pa never said anything though. He was very quiet. A few times I tried talking to him and he would lean over and kiss my forehead and say that he just needed some time, that I should go watch TV or color in my book.

Then we were all dressed in black and had our hair done very special in braids and curls. Tommy’s hair was slicked to the side with some greasy stuff. We had calling hours and a funeral for Gram. There wasn’t a preacher but Pa got up and said another prayer to God, asking him to watch over Gram and thanking him for the 56 years they had had together. I realized then why they seemed to get along so well. Of course 56 years meant nothing to me, but I knew it was a long time, and to spend that much time with anybody, I figured you would need to get along quite well. We went back to the house and flowers showed up on the doorstep almost every day for a month, and neighbors stopped by to bring us different casseroles, and lasagna, and cakes, and pies, and all types of food. They always said we were probably so downtrodden that it would be hard for us to even make a meal, so they were doing it for us.

A couple years later Pa passed away in the middle of the night. The doctor said it had been of natural causes, but I think it was because he missed Gram so much. I think he just didn’t want to be stuck in this big, old house all alone anymore, even though Marie and Tommy and I would come over most weekends like we used to. Mom had cried again and dad was there to comfort her. When it was time mom got up and said a prayer, almost the same one that Pa had said for Gram on her day. It was weird because mom had never said any prayer before. After that, mom bought the house and we all moved in. She reconstructed the room that Gram and Pa had slept in and she used it as a work room where she could paint or write or design things in her free time. She hung up some of Gram’s paintings in there too. I think Gram would have liked that.

A while ago Mom and Dad moved into a smaller house a couple miles down the road. They said they didn’t need the big space anymore and that getting to the mailbox down the driveway was getting a little harder on them. They needed a short driveway now. They were getting older. Tommy moved out to the city and decided that he was going to get a job as a sales executive or something like that. He says that he has a nice loft, but it costs him a pretty penny to keep. I don’t think I would enjoy that, but I plan to visit him at some point to find out what the excitement is all about. Marie moved out and went to college, and she just finished so now she has some designing job. She’s trying to make it big in the clothes industry I guess, but right now she’s just an assistant to some clothes designer.

I bought the house though. I didn’t want to lose it. It was Gram’s and Pa’s house, they had lived here their whole life and then mom and dad took it over. We couldn’t lose it after all of that. And the rocking chair is still here. I love this house, I was practically raised in this house. It’s been me in here for a while now. I’ve only had the house a few years, but recently I’ve been putting my own memories into it.

I recently became a parent, and I knew this was the perfect place to raise my family. Some days, I sit inside and I look into his eyes and I am reminded of the way Gram would look at us. Then I think about that chair, and on days like today, when Cam is down for a nap and the wind is blowing just right, I walk out here onto the porch. I don’t think I could sit in the chair, I think it would break after all these years, and I don’t want to think about that right now, so I wait for the wind to blow against me. And I watch the chair sway back and forth. I think of Gram and Pa and I know they are here with us. Then I wait for my husband to come pulling up the driveway and get out of the truck and wrap his arms around my waist. My hair blows in the wind and I can feel his soft lips against my cheek as he lets me know he will always come back to us, and I think; this is it, this is home.

Copyright © Cierra Mincher (2016) All Rights Reserved.