A once beautiful, ever so lively, welcoming home was gradually becoming a desolate empty, cold and lonely house. 55 Sonia Drive, a beautiful house, with an awful hue of forest green paint job, a huge, immaculate front yard, an even bigger backyard, a carport big enough to hold three cars, two great, brick light post at the end of the driveway that stood like guards protecting a castle, and five grand trees, that seemed as if they stretched for miles. One was an Evergreen tree, another was a Magnolia tree, one was a vibrant Crepe Myrtle, and the last two were Pecan trees.
My brother and I enjoyed climbing them. The backyard was our gigantic playground. We even had a little forest to play in. The home, originally belonging to my grandparents, was like heaven to me. Animals were lounging and playing everywhere. They had this extreme bright, yellow kitchen. Grandma was into sunflowers, so she had Grandpa paint it a ghastly yellow. I think he might have gotten the wrong shade of yellow because it turned out to look more of a banana and a sunflower. There was sunflower wallpaper lining the top of wall where it and the ceiling met.
In the living room, wooden paneled walls, a skylight, the Bat Cave (a fireplace), a cabinet with a glass door that held all of their records and their record player, a white couch with faded pink floral prints on it, it was terribly outdated, and so many little stains on the carpet from messy grandchildren. We always loved going to Grandma and Grandpa’s. In the year 2001, my mother, my brother and I ended up moving to the place that I believed in my mind to be heaven. Living there wasn’t everything I thought it seemed. Things were not as happy as visiting made them look.
Not long after, Grandma left. She was ready to pursue her dreams and go forth and start her career in child services. It was just us and Grandpa. I thought it was good. As the time passed, I started to realize it was not. Everyday things grew a little bit quieter, lonely, and distant. A home was now just another house on the block. Grandpa was slowly growing into a bitter old man. The angrier he became, the sadder the house became. He stayed cooped up in his tiny little room. A small room that connected the house to the guest apartment. It was also painted the horrible bright yellow.
A few plates with paintings of cats on them were still hanging on the walls. A round table stood by the door. On it sat multiple empty cans of Budweiser. He never left the room unless it benefited himself. He would always cook dinner, but he would never eat anything. All he got was another beer, and jar of peanut butter then back to his chamber for the night. He became hard to tolerate. Nothing seemed to appease him anymore. Everything you did was wrong because it wasn’t done his way. It seemed that as he started to become bitter, and sad, and fall apart, so did the house.
The shingles roof needed replacing, the ceiling, in the kitchen started leaking, the sewage system started to fail. It was becoming too much to handle. The house was starting to come apart at the seams. It started to feel more like living in a prison, and I was merely a prisoner with a private cell. I did not want to be there. I would try to leave as often as possible, even if it was to go for a walk down the street. Then, one day, he left. He never looked back. Everything he knew of that house he walked away from. He left it all within those walls.
Shortly after he left, the house was left for dead. Things began to worsen, so soon after, we left too. We could no longer live in the place we once held so near and dear to our hearts and called home. A once joyous house felt so dead, lifeless, and hopeless. The house that I made and held my fondest memories in was a place no more, for me. Although, leaving the greatest home I knew was sad, it was also relieving. It was great to leave a home that was not so sad and lonely. It was the start of a new journey, in a new home, which meant there were plenty more memories that I got to make.
