Seven Again

Have you ever returned to a place that you had only seen as a child? I did this by accident once when my friends and I took a road trip to the University of Illinois as teenagers. We were going to a little novelty art store when I began to have what I thought was the most real sense of deja vu I had ever experienced. The items I purchased then are completely forgotten now, but the voice in my head saying,'I've been here before", is still fresh. We walked back down the art stores steps and ventured out on to what was suppose to be unfamiliar territory. I would have rather joined in with my friends who were talking about a million words a minute, but instead I walked behind them feeling old ghost around me with every step. The afternoon quickly turned to night. We met an entourage of frat boys who were more than generous about sharing their beer and their knowledge of the campus. They took us to an open area of grass centered by a half circle of cement steps submerged in the ground. The air at this place had a strange familiarity. I ignored this feeling and the night progressed on as nights do on a college campus. The sun seemed to rise earlier than usual on this unusual night. That morning our "tour guides", walked us a different route back to our car. Up in the distance I saw the back alley of a small church parking lot. I was seven again. I snapped back to reality knowing exactly where I was at. My father and his wife had lived in the basement apartment of this church. I was quick to break away from the group so I could explore what was one of the most important locations of my childhood. My father had died when I was twelve, but I had not spoke to him since I was nine. I had distant memories of him. I could not remember exactly how he looked or the way his voice sounded, yet I cherished what little I did remember. So many forgotten memories came rushing back. It was difficult to distinguish between what I had imaged and what was real. I walked with childlike eyes around the church taking in all the details. Had this building shrank? It use to be the size of Notre Dame to me. I use to race around it for hours never realizing I was on a college campus. I did not know my father had went to college. I ran to the front of the church to see the sapling we had planted was now a ten year old tree. I remember how exciting it was to dig a hole and plant this little tree. We were suppose to come back and see how it had grown, at least that was the original plan. I just did not realize I would see it by accident or by myself. At this point I was to my knees grasping the grass around me to try to keep stable from the Earth's excelling speed. I looked up and saw the other side of the art store we had been the previous day and realized it was the store my father had worked. I had to know why the grassing area with the steps was also so familiar. I had one of my new friends take me back there. How could I have forgotten? It was all so obvious now. This was the only place on the entire planet I had ever spent time with my father alone. My father was an artist and his paintings were very dark and frightening to my young mind. He had had a very abusive upbringing and continuous battle with a heroine addiction until the day came that it finally won. This pain was evident through the contents of the large painted canvases crammed into the tiny apartment. I recalled one of the paintings to be one of that of a silhouette of a child in a cage, but it was very abstract. It was difficult for me to see what it was until my father explained it to me. Another canvas took up almost the entire living room wall and depicted what I thought was hell on earth. Demons were pillaging and destroying a city, I was petrified of these images. I was suppose to sleep on the couch next to this hellish image, but couldn't I was to afraid. That is when my father took me to the grassy place. My mother never let us stay up late, but there I was running through a sea of grass holding hands with the most mysterious people of my life. My father talked to me about the way he loved the night air and described to me all the scents that it carried that night. He spoke of how we all must overcome fear. I was soaking up his every breath. My mother hardly spoke to my siblings and I at all, let alone explain and talk with us about any subject that did not pertain to herself. Next my father place me on the steps and sketched a drawling of me, in my young opinion the best work he had ever done, but I think he was trying to show me that he could draw things of innocent beauty as well as things of a darker nature. He just didn't have much experience in the happy go lucky department. I wonder what happened to that sketch. I wish I had his paintings, his journals, or the many letters he composed over the years to my siblings and I. It would take away so many mysteries about him, perhaps fill up a little bit of the void I have lived with the majority of my life. After his death my mother refused to let us see or read any of those things. She told us she would keep them for us until we were old enough to understand. Whatever that means. Later in life our mother would tell us the place she put our fathers few things he left for us were destroyed by a flood. A guess a flood would be a proper story since everything about him was washed away. I've never went back to that campus since that day. I will take my children and pray that more memories come back or maybe I can feel close to him again. Until then I am confident in one thing, that day did not happen by chance or by mistake. I was called there.