Home Again...

So recently, I found out that my best friend’s mom has cancer. The same cancer that took my own mom in 1999. Can I just start by saying cancer sucks???

When I say best friend, I mean BEST friend. Kathy and I have been friends since the summer of 1972, when she walked down the hill past the five houses that separated us and knocked on our door, asking if the new little girl who just moved in wanted to come play. We were nine years old, just about to enter fourth grade. 

Not long after that, I also became friends with LeeAnn, who was already a good friend of Kathy’s, and the three of us have remained a bestie trio for over forty years. No matter how time or distance has separated us, we always reconnect instantly when we see each other, as though we’d never been apart. The only reason LeeAnn spent any less time with us before we were all driving was that she lived a bit further away from us, so it wasn't as easy for her just to pop by.

Kathy and I attended the same elementary and junior high schools. When it came time for high school, the district decided that a far-away school on the other side of the hill needed more students, so they re-drew the boundaries of "who went where". The horse trail next to my house was arbitrarily selected as a dividing line, so instead of attending Rolling Hills High, which was only a mile away, with my closest neighborhood friends, I had to drive five miles around the peninsula to attend Miraleste. Rolling Hills, by the way, was the high school that all three of my older siblings had attended. I have no earthly idea why my parents didn’t petition this decision, but there you go.

Because of Kathy’s mom’s illness, I’ve been up to Palos Verdes a few times recently, hanging out at Kathy’s childhood home, delivering a meal, helping with CaringBridge updates, or just offering a little company and moral support to Kathy as she holds vigil and drives her mom back and forth between doctors' offices and chemo treatments. PV is pretty close to my home in Redondo Beach, but it feels like a world away. There, the tree-lined, hilly streets wind their way past fancy homes, horse trails, and peacocks who strut the streets, confident that you'll slow your car to let them pass.

Today, Kathy’s family house remains much as it always was, gorgeous and very unique. They had it custom built when people first started moving in droves to Palos Verdes. It’s a split-level home, with a small horse stable, breathtaking landscaping (her family owns a national garden products company, so of course their landscaping is amazing). A recent addition is a lovely waterfall that flows from the upstairs yard to the patio below. It has provided a tranquil place for her mom to enjoy time outdoors.

I think it’s fair to say that from the ages of 9 through 17, I probably spent about a third of my time at Kathy’s house. Kathy and I rode our ponies through the canyons of Palos Verdes together. We once ate a whole Sara Lee cheesecake together. We played pool and backgammon in the game room, with its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the back yard, or we'd load the player piano with old rolls of music from long ago. Now and then her dad would join us and play a bit of "Clair de Lune", his favorite tune. Other times, we hung out in the corral with her horse, Pony Gal, and her goat, Niña, or we played paddle tennis in the court that was built into the side of the canyon beyond the back yard. 

Almost every day after school or for the better part of most summer days, you could find us doing something together, usually at her house. We’d have sleepovers there. Kathy’s room was always like the room of a princess to me. Right in her bedroom, she had two beds, a sink with mirrors, and this cool faucet that arcs up sort of like a luxurious water fountain, so you could get a drink right there any time you wanted. Sometimes her dad would come home from late night sales meetings and chase us screaming, giggling girls through the house, while emitting a deep, spooky, maniacal laugh… until Kathy’s mom would call up to him and make him reluctantly give up the game and go to bed. 

Out next to their back driveway (yes, there are two driveways), there is a loquat tree that hangs heavy with fruit every year. If you’ve never eaten a loquat, I highly recommend it. We’d gorge ourselves on the tart-yet-sweet fruit and spit out the smooth, brown, oval seeds, until we were completely satisfied.

I even got my first "real" kiss from a boy there, at Kathy's house. He was a friend of her older brother, and I think he was drunk at the time. It was, um, kind of sloppy, and not much else. I don’t even remember his name. Kathy probably does. But I digress.

I haven’t lived in Palos Verdes since I finally made the leap, after college, to my own apartment (which I shared, incidentally, with my best friends, Kathy and LeeAnn) in nearby Redondo Beach. Also, incidentally, Kathy and I both attended USC -- and guess who walked into my dorm room right after I moved in? Kathy. Turns out her room was just a few doors from mine. Which was a little picture of God's amazing grace, as I was super homesick and anxious about living away from home. 

After my folks died, I -- as executor of the “estate” -- had the horribly sad task of selling our family home and saying goodbye to any claim I had to life on the hill.  My sister Diana still keeps a horse in Westfield, the housing subdivision where we lived out so much of our youth. Several times since, I’ve ridden with Diana on horseback past our old house. It is strange to see so much that is familiar, and so much that is totally alien. And when I say “alien”, I’m serious. They have a freakin’ GARGOYLE in my old backyard. What???

So, back to Kathy’s house. I'll call it that for simplicity's sake. Kathy actually has her own beautiful home just a couple of miles away from her mom's house in Westfield. But we're talking about her mom's house here - so, for now, this is what I mean by "Kathy's house". I have been back many times as an adult. After college, there was a night when Kathy decked the house out for a murder mystery dinner, and about a dozen of us spent the evening dressed in 1930s attire, figuring out whodunit. It's been the location for several other significant parties and events over the years. There were times when Kathy and I donned aprons and passed drinks and hors d'oeuvres for one swanky event or another hosted by her mom. I think I have a picture somewhere of one such event... we were so cute.

There’s something different, though, when I walk into this beautiful old home today. Every square inch of Kathy's house fills me with nostalgia -- the utility room, specially appointed for wrapping gifts and arranging flowers. The dim, cozy room near the garage that I hardly ever entered, which was her dad's office. Her bedroom, which connected to her brother's room through a bathroom that had sliding doors with these little twisty metal locks on each side. The conversation pit downstairs, where I, as maid of honor, joined Kathy and eight bridesmaids to drink champagne and pose for pictures on her wedding day. The upstairs TV room, where Kathy's dad used to watch television and snack on things I hardly considered snacks. It's also where her folks gave us a stern lecture when our over-18 boyfriends had delivered us home after we got kicked out of Disneyland. That's material for a whole other blog...

But it’s more than that. More than the flood of memories. Walking into Kathy's house, I get an almost overpowering desire to go back to a simpler time in life, a time when, almost daily, I'd wander up to knock on her giant front door. I'd spend hours and hours there while my parents were out of town at one barbershop event or another, seeking refuge from my older siblings' rule of my own home roost. Years later, I learned that Kathy’s mom would often wonder aloud where on earth my parents always were, and, in truth, I think she took pity on me and did her best to provide a sort of haven for me. I really have no idea why we were left on our own so often... I think the term is "barbershop orphans". It never seemed strange to me as a child, but now I wonder what on earth my parents thought was going on in our house during their absence, with three teenagers, a younger sibling, and no supervision. Again, fodder for a whole other blog...

It’s also super eerie, returning so many years later to Kathy's house. I'm having trouble describing why, but it’s as if all the Ghosts of Christmas Past haunt the hallways and rooms. Rather than bringing a fond smile and happy memories, I feel faintly sad and bewildered. There’s a tug, deep in my gut, that I can’t name. So much time has passed since I treated this as my second home. So many life events, from the earth-shattering to the insignificant… yet this house is still almost exactly the same. It’s sort of this eternal Place of Being inside my world, unlike any other place. It stirs longings in me that are difficult to articulate and impossible to fulfill.

I think maybe it’s because this home has remained in place, long after all my other childhood haunts have vanished or become unavailable to me. There are no other places I can go where I feel so connected to my childhood. The closest thing, oddly, is the old DoubleTree Hotel, off Highway 99 in Bakersfield, where my Sweet Adelines regional events took place for most of my barbershop life with my parents. After they died, I'd often coach a chorus up in Fresno, and on the way home, I'd always stop at the DoubleTree and just wander the halls for a while before continuing the drive. It felt comforting to walk through a place where I'd spent so much happy time with my mom and dad. Then one year, they totally remodeled the place, so it just doesn't feel that way anymore. It's just another hotel.

So Kathy's house alone has preserved this piece of my past. It's one of the last touchstones left to my childhood and to my life with my parents. They died far too young, about 16 years ago. Dad was 69 and Mom was only 64. I was talking about this with Brian, and it makes us wonder what places will spark this sort of nostalgia in our own daughters one day, hopefully many, many years from now.

I'm headed up there this evening, where I'll enjoy Kathy's company, the quiet tranquility, and the scenic view. I'll let Kathy vet this blog and tell me it's okay to out her for being expelled from Disneyland... you know, before I click on "Publish"...