Darkness At The Edge Of The Stairs, part two

I slowly walked down the steps making the turn on the landing then walked down the remaining steps. In the darkness, I walked into the basement the three or four steps necessary for me to reach toward the ceiling to pull the small beadlike chain that turns on the light that illuminates the downstairs.

With this lone lightbulb shining I looked around. The sights were as familiar to me as any I have ever known in my life. Directly in front of me stood Mom’s ironing board. I rarely remember it placed anywhere else than in the very spot it stood. I recalled years earlier when I was just days away from leaving home for college. I would take a portable ironing board and a regular iron with me then. Mom though was insistent that I understood how my clothes would need to be ironed then determined to show me how. She did that in this very spot. First, she would iron a piece of clothing then she would ask me to iron another piece of clothing. It sure seemed like something rather unimportant at the time to me but I know those tips and tricks are still engrained in my memory to this day. The thought of how she felt this was something I needed to know but more importantly was also something she knew she could teach me makes me try to comprehend the depth of love that simple act covers.

Behind me clothes hung on racks against a wall. I knew Mom’s jacket would be here. I quickly located it. I didn’t take it off the rack immediately though. Instead I took a long look around at this part of the house I hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

On the floor were a few stacks of books. Some of them remain from my college career. Also, there was an old lamp from the living room, some paint, and a laundry basket full of old toys passed down from the grandchildren to the great-grandchildren. These things are bits and pieces of the lives that have lived in the upstairs over decades, nothing all that important in the present moment but still things with enough value in the time gone by to still be around.

I looked over to another wall. Remaining there surrounded by white paint was a handwritten blurb “Painted in 1965”. Outside the blurb, the walls were painted yellow. I chuckled knowing the walls in the basement had been painted several times since 1965 but that blurb had never been updated and that small space hadn’t seen paint since 1965.

I walked into the other half of the basement. Straight ahead my eyes locked onto one of two windows on the outer wall. Dad replaced these windows years ago from the ones we had while I was growing up here. I remember when they were a different style than the present windows and could be opened from the outside. I recall this quite well because once Mom and I were locked out of the house. There was no house key hidden in some obvious place outside the house. I was young and small then so my Mom felt she had only one option to get back in the house. We opened one of those basement windows then she lowered me into the basement. Once I made the long drop to the basement floor I ran up the stairs to unlock the front door.

Another wall of the basement was lined with canned goods. Vegetables and jellies and jams grown by family and friends then preserved in cans for use throughout time seemed stacked ten or twenty deep on multiple shelves. I always remember these shelves like the way I found them this day, stocked to the hilt. I couldn’t help but smile at the planning, ingenuity and generosity captured in each glass jar. It made me thankful that this part of life some never knew was part of life I would always know.

I knew Mom was waiting on her jacket. I walked over to the rack of clothes then located it. I removed it from the rack then reached to turn off the light. As I did I noted one other thing I long remember about the basement in this house. On

the door frame above the first step to leave the basement hung a small horseshoe. Some will say that it hangs there to ensure good luck. As I began those steps I couldn’t help but realize I had been blessed with more than just good luck. The memories I stirred up by taking a short trip to the basement of the house where I grew up made me understand pure happenstance has nothing to do with having a good family and good memories. Hard work, determination and love overseen by God above built this house into a place where good memories were made by a group of people I am humbled to call my family.

As I made the final step to return to the main floor of the house, I reached to turn off the light for the stair landing which would plunge the basement back into the darkness I may always associate, in some way, with that particular part of this house. Doing this small thing felt so familiar. It almost felt as if I still lived in the house.

I no longer live there though. I know though in some way it will always be a place I call home.