The Little House

In my previous post, I talked about the trip to get my daughter's picture taken with M's girls. We took the girls to our hometown mall (neither of us live there anymore, but we do live fairly close to it), and on our way to get the girls' cookies, we passed a section of the mall that has a mural painted on the wall. The mural was painted several years ago and depicts our hometown's downtown shops and businesses. Why is this interesting/important/etc? Well, one of the storefronts painted on the wall is my grandmother's gift shop, The Little House.

My grandmother was a stay-at-home mom from 1951, when my aunt was born, to 1976 when she and a friend decided to go into business together. They bought a gift shop, which was originally out in the country, but my grandmother and her friend wisely moved it into the city. A year or so later, my grandmother bought out her friend and owned the store outright herself for nearly the next 30 years.

My childhood is full of memories of that store. In the early 1980s, when I was a kid, she used to set up a kiosk at the local mall at Christmastime, full of hundreds of ornaments, creche scenes, Santas, lighted houses, stockings.... everything Christmas. My grandfather and a few other workers were in charge of it while my grandmother stayed at the LH. One of my favorite things to do was sit behind the counter on the stool and take it all in. A person could never get bored there; there was always so much to see.

Likewise, the store itself was full of shelves, tables, glass cube case of merchandise. The LH was not the type of place a person would want to bring their small children to; everywhere you'd turn, there would be another fragile item a child could grab and break. The carpet was rainbowed with shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple stripes, and the floor squeaked and creaked when people walked on it.

Seeing that mural brought all the memories rushing back to me, and how I long sometimes to be in that store one more time some days. The smells of my Granny's perfume, potpourri, and cardboard boxes, unique and familiar, the sounds of the ceiling above my head creaking as my grandmother looked for a box upstairs in the attic and the buzzer sounding as a customer came in... simple and sweet and fresh in my mind like I had just been there yesterday.

The summer I turned 9, my family moved across town to a house near the downtown. It was then that I started working at the store for $.25 an hour. I would stamp the receipt pads (everything was done by hand) with the store's information, dust, and whatever else Granny asked me to do. Gradually, over time, my responsibilities increase (as did my pay!). I was soon able to wait on customers (always stand up when someone enters the store, smile, greet them), write receipts (write the item number here, don't forget to do the tax), gift wrap (measure before you cut the wrapping paper, don't use too much tape; that's wasteful!), and take inventory (by hand and item by item). Eventually, my grandmother would even leave the store in my hands while she stayed home and worked at the "Big House" as we called it. As the years passed, I learned more and more about the store, how to run a business, my Granny, and myself.

My Granny was not the type of grandmother who stayed home and baked cookies with her grandkids or would take us to the toy store and let us pick out any toy we wanted (that was my dad's mom, my grandma). She sometimes was hard on me and drove me absolutely crazy, but she is one of the people in my life who has had the most impact on who I am as a person.

The store closed in fall of 2004, and the building was bought by the beauty shop across the street to expand their spa options. My mom, 3 cousins, and I got manicures there last summer just so we could see what the place looks like now. It is totally different from the front door to the layout to the paint and lighting. The attic, which was once dark, creepy, and full of mountains of boxes of inventory is now bright and cheery and is divided up into massage rooms. But you know what I noticed as I got my nails done? The ceiling still creaks as people walk around.

I spent countless hours at the LH after school, on Saturdays, during the summer months, and Christmas breaks. I look back on that time, and all those hours were hours I got to spend with my grandmother that my brothers and cousins didn't get. I consider myself so lucky. I was the first grandchild, and my grandmother was the oldest in her family growing up, too. We had a special bond from the beginning because of that, and although she never said it, I know I was the favorite. As I get older I realize that I am a lot more like her than I thought. I will find myself doing something she totally would have done.

Now that my daughter is home, I think often about my Granny. I wonder what she would have thought of R, if she would have supported our adopting, and how she would interact with her. It saddens me to think that my daughter will never know this person who played such an important role in my life. It is when I think of those things that I miss my grandmother the most.