Throughout my lifetime there have been surprise attacks on the stability of my family. I suppose this is true for most people. Horrific things tend to happen without warning and I have had to learn how to adjust my course. At the same time good surprises also come, often at the very times when I feel as though my resilience is waning. After seventy five years of enduring both storms and sunny days I feel both battered and blessed. Often it is in the seemingly most insignificant moments that I find enormous helpings of sustaining joy.
One evening I was sitting with my husband and father-in-law talking about this and that before preparing dinner. I was only half heartedly participating in the discussion. My mind was actually far away, thinking of of how I longed for the days of my childhood and the Friday night visits to my Grandmother Ulrich’s house. Somehow I found a way to weave my memories of her into the conversation. Before long my husband, Mike, was showing his father photos of my grandmother holding cups of the weak sugary coffee that she always offered to her guests. She was the quintessential hostess padding across the floor of her home in her bare feet and worn cotton dress with a welcoming expression on her face that said everything about her generosity and love.
As Mike and I delightedly described gatherings at Grandma’s house one thought led to another until finally we had decided to hop into our truck and travel to her old neighborhood just east of downtown Houston. On a whim we all wanted to view the tiny house that my grandfather had paid to be built one room at a time, the home where my mother and her seven siblings had grown up, the site of some of the most joyous moments of my life. We quickly gathered ourselves and jumped into the truck in pursuit of a random and unplanned adventure.
Our short journey was like a mapping of my life as we left Pearland where we now live and headed down the beltway to southeast Houston where I pointed out the places that had once been so integral to my history. I had stories to go with landmark after landmark. There was Almeda Mall, St. Frances Cabrini, the church where I had worshipped and worked, my mother’s home, the site of the first house that Mike and I purchased, places where I had plied my skills as a teacher. It felt as though every square inch of the area through which we passed was home to sacred memories that reminded me of all the good people and good times that had dominated my life. It was impossible not to associate this place and that one with so much joy that I felt a kind of reverent gratitude for the people and places that had filled the hours and days and years leading to the present time.
Before long we left the freeway and drove along Broadway Boulevard. We showed Mike’s dad apartment projects that we had found too expensive for our budget when we first married. I spoke of how much I had enjoyed working at St. Christopher Catholic School. We missed seeing the old Chuck Wagon where we bought the best hamburgers imaginable and the DPS building where I had nervously tested for my driver’s license. Driving on we saw the turn for my Aunt Valeria’s former home and pointed out the schools that had sat on the land even when our mothers were teenagers. We drove past the turning basin of the Houston Ship Channel and adjusted our course to head down Navigation Street where my mother once stood waving at President Franklin Roosevelt as he motored down the street. Finally we drove past the little house that had been the site of so many glorious childhood memories with my aunts and uncles and cousins.
Nowadays the house on North Adams Street is surrounded by businesses and industrial complexes. Only one other home has survived the march of change. There was a time when it was a quiet little refuge for sweet people who had lived there for all of their lives. Now they were gone, victims of progress and the changing use of land in the shadow of downtown. It was nice to see that the present day owners of my grandmother’s home were keeping the place in fairly good repair. It was painted a bright blue hue that made it look happy. There were plants and flowers indicating someone’s care. it reminded me of a favorite childhood book about a little house that ended up between two tall buildings in the middle of downtown. It made me smile to look at it and I wondered if the people living there had any idea of the remarkable joy that had been so much of the essence of the place.
We had decided celebrate our little trip with dinner at a restaurant owned by one of Mike’s high school classmates. It is so close to the downtown area that it has become a favorite haunt of people who work there or attend ball games and concerts nearby. The area closest to down is enjoying a bit of gentrification but leaders with an historical bent are attempting to keep the essence and culture of the area intact. I thought of my mother’s stories of her father taking a bus to work at the Houston Packing Company which was once just down the street. It was the place where my grandfather spent most of his work life.
After enjoying a delightful TexMex meal we ventured into downtown, passing by Minute Maid Park, the home of the Houston Astros. My grandfather lived in a rented room near that site of the ball park when he first arrived from Austria Hungary just before World War I. He worked on a farm in those early days, saving to send for his bride. I almost felt his spirit reminding me to work hard and be proud of my freedoms in this country.
It was a wonderful evening that distracted me from the hardships of the world and reminded me of my heritage and the long arc of history from which I have come. I need to follow that pathway now and again to remember who I am and how much I have been loved. It was indeed a glorious evening more valuable to me than a journey to foreign places. Along that drive lay the so much of the story of my life and it was good.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 