The Same World, but a Little Less Magical

There’s this feeling I get--it could be in school or in dance or in just ordinary life--when I know something bad is going to happen. No matter how many times people tell me everything is going to be alright, I know that my world is about to change--some part of my life will never be the same. I got this feeling the day my parents told me they were getting divorced and the day my uncle died. Both of these times I was losing some part of my innocence that I would never be able to regain. The first and most memorable time I felt it deep inside me that my world was about to change was the night I heard the phone ringing with my grandmother's neighbor on the other line. My father picked it. His face went white and he raced out the door. My grandmother's house was in flames. 

I lay with my mother that night as we waited to hear any news. She told me everything was going to be fine. I kept thinking how I knew that it couldn’t be, but I couldn’t imagine a world where it wasn’t--there wasn’t a world that existed where my grandmother didn’t live in her big house on top of the hill overlooking her farm and the mountains. There wasn’t a world where I couldn’t explore the endless treasures that lay in her house. There wasn’t a world where my cousins and I couldn't rummage through her closet, dressing up in her clothes. Yet at that moment I knew that I was living in this impossible world, no matter how many times my mother told me everything was going to be alright.  

My grandmother hasn’t lived in Vermont her whole life, but when you meet her she seems like a 7th generation Vermonter. The mountains and beauty that surrounds her is her happiness, her home, her oasis from the busy day to day life that all of us have experienced at one time or another. Her little farm in a town that no one has heard of is where some of her greatest memories have occurred. It’s where everyone goes when they need some space from the craziness of everyday life. It's my family’s oasis, the safe haven, where everything can be forgotten in the beautiful view that surrounds you.

When I was little I spent nights at my grandmother’s house that sits atop the rolling hills. She had the biggest collection of porcelain dolls I had ever seen. I used to open the case and just stare at them, not knowing if I should breathe in fear I would break them. One day I decided to take pictures of all of them. I determined which ones were best friends and I carefully arranged each one when it was their turn to be photographed. Along with her dolls was a massive telescope my grandfather used to use to spot my cousins and I when we would go hiking in the mountains. All these treasures lived on the bottom floor which had a musky smell, a cross between dust and old relics. Even though it made my mother sneeze and she hated it down there, I loved adventuring through its many wonders. Her house had the most antiques I had ever seen, ranging from priceless Civil War muskets to the giant grandfather clock that loomed over me when I was little. There was always a new thing for me to find, and my cousins and I would spend hours going through everything until my grandfather would find us and yell at us to be careful.

The upstairs had the living room where my cousins and I would perform a play every year. We would have a different theme each time, and work on it until we had it perfect. Our parents would be forced to sit on the floor for hours, watching us act out an extravagant story that only made sense to our young minds. When my grandmother watched us performing our hearts out, it was the happiest I have ever seen her. 

The top floor of her house was my favorite. This floor was a loft overlooking the kitchen and dining room. It had one area with a bunch of beds where my cousins and I stayed up late into the night telling scary stories and reading children's books from her enormous collection. My grandmother used to be a librarian, so the amount of books that filled her house was unimaginable. The other section of the loft was where we played. We set up toy cars to race them around or set up her giant collection of wooden toys. I spent countless hours in that loft playing. To me, it was more entertaining than any TV show or movie. It was a space where no adults were allowed, and my imagination could run wild. It was my favorite place to be.

The night my childhood started to fade was the night my grandparent’s wonderful house, filled with endless mysteries and priceless relics, burned to the ground. My grandmother, out for dinner with a friend, came back to see her house ablaze in fiery red, and my father standing there in shock. They stood and watched the firefighters hopelessly try to put out the fire. I woke up the next morning and my grandmother was sleeping on the couch in my living room. Her only possessions were the clothes on her back and the few things in her purse.

I remember this day very clearly, mostly because I was so confused by what had happened. It didn’t seem possible that everything that my grandmother had owned, everything that had amazed me since I was a child, was suddenly gone, vanished into thin air. I couldn’t fully comprehend what had happened until I saw it for myself. The TV was on that morning and as I was eating breakfast videos of her house in flames came across it. I stood there in amazement, watching all my adventures and imaginary worlds burning up. 

The next few weeks my father spent trying to document every single priceless item that was in that house. All the dolls that I had spent hours playing with, my grandfather’s huge collection of fossils, and the massive clocks that always stood looking down on me. No matter how much insurance companies gave us, these things couldn't be replaced. My grandparents were collectors, and they had lost all their collections. 

We moved my grandmother into a house a few miles down the road that was for rent. From that point on it has never been the same going to visit her. I go because I love her so much, but it hurts to see her in these houses that aren’t her home. The rental house has anything they were able to recover from the ash. It wasn’t much, mostly just many pictures of my father and his brothers when they were little. That house was an imposter, with its mice running everywhere, it's smells of dust, and it’s empty meaningless rooms, it was a reminder of all we had lost.

It has been almost seven years since the fire happened. My grandmother has rebuilt a house on the foundation of the other. Although her new house is very nice, I don’t really like going to it. The old house had been built in many parts by my grandfather and father. First, the kitchen and bedrooms were built, then a few years later they decided to add on a living room, and eventually, a loft was put in. There was so much personality in that house that in my mind it can’t be recreated. There can be the same view and same kitchen and living room, but the memories aren’t there. I can’t walk into the house and see my cousins and I playing board games when we were little. I can’t see the many birthdays and Christmases that we celebrated there. All I see is a faint whisper of what my childhood once was. When her old house burned it marked the slow end of my childhood, and the new house marks me turning into an adult. The same world, but a little less magical, a little less exciting, and a little less wonderful.

 

alaenah156

VT

YWP Alumni