The old blue house at the end of the lane

At the end of one sleepy lane in upstate New York sits an old blue house that's been there for nearly fifty years. I know it well. My Grandfather helped build it.

That dear old house has been the destination for countless road trips over the years. As a Navy brat, I grew up with what I like to call multiple-home disorder- i.e. I identify with more than one place as my "home." I've called the Midwest my first home most of my life, but the title gets stuck to wherever my folks and Tapeworm are. My second home has always been the blue house. It's my constant.

At the airport recently, waiting to board for my flight to the blue house, I got to thinking about how over the years there's been a change in the number of faces waving goodbye at the end of each visit.

Spring of 2010 was the last time the whole clan would bid us farewell. As we backed out of the driveway, the front patio was crowded with: my Grandma P and Grandpa E, my Uncle T, and my Aunt D (she lived with her husband and son in a different house in the same town, but I'm pretty sure she came by that morning to say goodbye). Grandma P was in an advancing stage of Huntington's Disease, but she was still standing and waving with the rest of them. I remember that last round of hugs.

That fall, we lost my dear Aunt D to cancer and there was one less beautiful face assembled to say goodbye as we left the week after the funeral.

It wasn't long after that our own numbers driving up to NY dwindled. Over the next few years, it became more and more common for just Momma to drive up with Tapeworm and I. The Trio.

My Junior year of high school, we lost my lovely Grandma P. That was also the last time my dad joined us at all on our two, some years three, trips to the blue house. My parents went through a messy divorce early last year, somehow finalizing what we had been losing over the years.

This past Summer, we (the Trio) planned a Summer vacation to the blue house. It was the weekend of the 4th of July, and also the weekend after my Grandpa E's 76th birthday.

We received the heartbreaking news six hours away from New York that our beloved Grandpa E had passed away the night before in his sleep. We were devastated.

I remember every minute of that car ride, from the moment the cellphone rang, to the moment we pulled into the driveway of the old blue house. I already knew something was different. The fresnel lamp wasn't lit, the one that is a replica of those used in lighthouses, the one that my Grandpa E had lit for years in the front window, welcoming us to the blue house when we arrived late into the night when the house had gone to sleep.

And the American flag on its pole was at full staff, as if the thirty year Command Master Chief that had lived under its banner for so many years was sleeping comfortably in his room upstairs. As if he was going to wakeup a few hours later and sip his coffee and look out that front window at the flag.

At first light, the flag was changed to half staff. The old blue house was in mourning again.

It's been almost two months since that week and I've been thinking about the blue house again and again. Everywhere I go it seems, I'm reminded of something that reminds me of one time or another in the backyard or the family room or the dining room or the garage of the blue house. Snowball fights. Christmas mornings. Early morning waffles. Storm watching. It's all there, in my heart, in the old blue house at the end of the lane.