My parents' basement has a legacy of its own in the annals of my family history. Friends and family alike are aware of the legendary status of the basement, if only to know one does not enter my parents' basement, for that is all one needs to know.
So yes, I will begin with the birth of my parents' basement, which was three years before my own and, like the house above it, built at the command and expense of my parents. Nobody has lived in my parents' house but my family. To borrow again from Dickens, this point must be appreciated in order to grasp the significance of the story I now impart.
My parents' basement is under the sole and proprietary direction - and discretion - of my father. In the nearly five decades my parents have owned that house, I believe the total time I have spent in the basement to not exceed a single day.
The basement is quiet and still; no noise emanates from it - not even when my dad works down there.
There is nothing in the basement for anyone but my dad. The washer and dryer, once upon a time, were relegated to the basement, but I was spoiled and therefore did not do my own laundry until long after the laundry equipment had been moved upstairs.
No one in my family has ever said "I'll go to the basement to get the cooler" or "the bucket is in the basement" or "I'll be watching TV in the basement". In fact, if you go to the basement looking for something, you won't find it. I have nosed around, looking for the dresser that graced my childhood nursery, or the photo album from my mom's 40th birthday party. I know they are down there, but the basement is loathe to release her bounty.
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| I mean, that's just a diagnosis right there. |
Yet, when I have gone to the basement looking for my dad, the basement will occasionally toss me a treasure, like an ocean wave depositing a message in a bottle at your feet. Once, I flattened myself to squeeze past something to get to my dad, only to realize that "something" was the train set my father used to assemble at the holidays, still smelling of ozone and Christmas. Another time, I found my dead grandmother's artificial leg, laying on a shelf, just at my eye level.
Yes, my grandmother's artificial leg is a treasure. Maybe we'll talk about that later.
I have never seen the rear wall of my parents' basement. That's a weird thing to say, isn't it? I have never seen the rear wall of the basement in the home my parents have lived in my whole life. My friends of twenty, thirty years - my husband of nearly that long - have never even been in my parents' basement. Son doesn't even know where it is located. He's eight. My parents live 15 minutes from me. He's been to their house more than once.
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| What gems do you conceal, basement shelf? |
Nobody puts anything in the basement but my dad, and my dad is the only one permitted to ever remove anything. Occasionally, my father will come to me with something he has found in the basement. When he begins with "I found this and thought you'd want it," I inwardly cringe. Usually, it's used candles or a moldy Barbie that I last played with in 1982. But when he starts with "I found this and thought I'd check with you before I threw it out," I know I've struck gold.
Once, it was the wooden doll cradle my grandfather had carved and painted for me when I was a child. Another time, it was a stack of letters exchanged between my grandparents and a distant relative. On my 40th birthday, my dad made me a scrapbook of all the cards and letters my parents received when I was born. Some were dotted with mildew, others curled with moisture, but all were precious. My father had saved them, somewhere deep in the basement catacombs, then had painstakingly retrieved them and mounted them in an album. One of the best presents I was ever given.
My father himself is not unlike the basement he finds so dear. He, too, is quiet and still, and I challenge anyone who has ever known him to claim they know everything about my dad, or understand him completely. Even my mother doesn't - can't, won't - claim to fathom my father. Like the rear wall of the basement, there is no one who has penetrated every level of my dad's being.
My dad does not give up anything you seek directly from him. Much like locating my childhood dresser, questioning my dad is a fruitless endeavor. I have tried and tried to ask about his time in the Marines, his childhood, his grandparents, his life with my mother before I arrived. Always the answers are one word, without exposition or detail, or the dreaded "yes, more or less..." said with great hesitancy, a half smile and a far off look, and no other words.
That response, by the way, covers everything from "Why didn't you marry your first fiancee?" to "How was your appointment with the dermatologist?" I'm not kidding. Go ask him a question. I'll wait.
But if you are unassuming and approach my dad without an agenda, you will occasionally be graced with a nugget as valuable as his train set. You may discover, for example, that his brother had a tracheostomy for years, or that his ancestor was a pirate. He may volunteer that he owns land in El Paso, Texas, or that his family called him Pip as a child.
Hello again, Mr. Dickens.
So when my mom called on Day 6 of her hospitalization to say she had been trying to get ahold of my father all morning, to no avail, I was not surprised. My mom probably said to my dad, on Day 5 of her hospitalization, "What are you doing tomorrow?", and my dad probably said "Nothing." Only if my mom said "Are you fixing the boiler at church tomorrow?" or "Will you be in the basement tomorrow morning?" or "Are you walking over to the body shop to get the car I damaged when I drove into a semi?" would my dad answer in the affirmative. Besides, my parents never answer any phone, but that's a tale for another day. Suffice to say I wasn't really concerned because I figured my dad was in the basement, without a phone.
When I got to my parents' house, my dad's car was parked out front, the door was locked, his wallet was on the kitchen counter, and both the TV and radio were on. A search of the house failed to produce my dad, and when I headed into the basement there was still no sign of my father. My ability to assess that my dad for certain wasn't in the basement was, of course, severely hampered by the mounds of junk (treasure?) that loom from wall to wall to wall to wall.
Finding the back door unlocked, I searched the yard. Again, nothing.
Over the next 30 minutes, I went through the house, basement, and yard half a dozen times. I looked in his car. I questioned the neighbors.
"You know," a neighbor said to me, "one time when I was talking to your dad, his phone started ringing in his pocket. He told me my phone was ringing."
I called the church. I called the body shop. I called my mom, to make sure my dad hadn't somehow been en route to the hospital - it's not beyond him to walk anywhere.
He says he walks because walking is never crowded.
I checked the six - yes six - cordless phones lying about for some clue on the caller ID. I checked the two dead flip phones on the kitchen table. I called and called his cell.
With no dad and nowhere else to look, I was about to call the police. I set out on one last search of the house and its grounds.
And that was when I found my dad, on his hands and knees in the backyard, camouflaged by shrubbery and khaki-colored clothes.
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| Walked past that bush six times before I found my dad hidden behind its leafy fronds. |
He was fixing a section of the neighbor's fence.
Relieved, I called to him. I told him that I'd been at his house for over 30 minutes looking for him, that my mom had been trying to reach him for hours.
His only response was to ask if he and I were heading out to my cousin's house that day.
I called my mom and let her know my dad was safe, not wandering the streets with a traumatic head wound, but outside, working in the yard. She asked if he had water with him. I eyed his shirt and pondered a safe answer:
I passed the phone to my dad, and stood, five feet away, easily hearing every word my mom yelled at my dad. Like the basement, the world rages around my dad, but my dad remains still, undisturbed, a mysterious warren of solitude. He didn't defend himself, or yell back. He just shrugged, tossed out the occasional "OK", asked if my mom wanted to talk to me.
"I hope you yelled at him," my mom said (yelled) when I took the phone. I could have, but really, what would have been the point? Most people would not be missing in their own backyard for two hours, and most people would have thrown down a carpet and some paneling in the basement.
I could seethe about the way things are, or I could accept the fact that my dad, and our basement, are treasure troves of enigma, easy to overlook but a mistake to do so.
Proofreading this, it sounds like my dad could be a serial killer. I'm about 98% sure he isn't, but I can't really be sure. When he passes, I'll hire a junk removal company to clean out the basement. When they reach that rear wall and there's no bodies, I'll have an answer for you. But mostly, I just think my dad is my dad, the basement is his kindred spirit, and that he does stuff like this:
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| That's inverted milk cartons. On top of the stove. |
And this:
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| His cataract eye drops. In a tea cup from my toddler niece's tea set. Why? |
And I'd rather he be like this, basement and all, than be a serial killer, 'cause I watch American Gothic and having a serial killer in the family will destroy you.
Having my dad in the family will just suck up two hours of your Friday morning.
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