The home we’ve been renting
for the past five or so years is an old two-room school house that was hauled
here from somewhere in southern Minnesota back in the 40s. The rafters in the attic are stamped “Sears,”
hailing the era when you could order a schoolhouse kit from the Christmas catalog. The floor of the porch, now enclosed, still slants
downward, and the school’s original siding lines the interior of the coat
closet. Our children have tacked bug
collections, birds, the letters of the alphabet, and a banner that reads “A
Happy School – Today!” to the porch’s paneled walls. My Grandma’s old alphabet, from the days when
she taught kindergarten, decorates the dining room. Crayons and paper pepper the small table in
the kitchen, and artwork adorns the refrigerator.
Our home has the feel of a happy school.
Our schoolhouse sits just
around the corner from The Farm, where first my dad and then later my siblings
and I grew up. Mom told me once that she
and Dad, when they were dating, considered living here someday. Maybe they slowed down as they cruised by in
Dad’s T-bird. When I was growing up, a
man by the name of Kurt Powell, the closest thing my siblings and I knew to Boo
Radley, lived here. Powell owned a big black
dog and we’d heard that he played the electric guitar and had at least several tattoos
– enough to make us threaten one another, “If you don’t behave, Powell’ll come
and getcha.” When we were old enough to pedal
down to Mud Crik, a newlywed couple made their home here. When B.J. and I strolled past hand-in-hand to
carve our names on the railroad bridge that overlooks the Persoon place, there
was a little boy, followed by a messy divorce, a dad who left, and Mom who
ended up in a prison for a while. When
we looked at the house for the first time, it had been empty for two
years. The toilet was filled with
cigarette butts, Asian beetles crunched beneath our feet, and a child’s drawing
hung crooked on the refrigerator: “To Mom,” it read, “Love Austin.”
And then we moved in. We scraped dry dog poo out of the entry and the
bathroom’s peeling paint. We planted a
garden. Soon there was a puppy, chickens,
kittens, and goats. Will was born a few
months after we arrived, followed later by Marie and Nathan.
We’ve made a lot of memories in this little
school. We’ve learned much about living
and loving.
But
in only a few short weeks, we’ll be leaving.
I’ve been busy packing stuff into boxes and memories into my mind. This little schoolhouse will be empty
once again, the echoes of our voices and laughter joining those of all the others
who’ve learned under this roof. How my
heart aches to leave. Yet the time has come to move on to lessons that must be
learned in another place.
For as long as
the Master Teacher gives me life, I’ve things to be taught...
...'til the day I graduate...to glory.
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