Now that he’s gone, I sometimes regret my impatience. But only sometimes.
I felt like a hostage more than a passenger when he decided to go on a driving tour. I cut myself some slack now because it was never a mutual decision nor an invitation to come along.
How much more meaningful it would have been had he asked and explained. Shared how he felt and what he remembered. We should have inquired and maybe we did, and I don’t recall. On the quiet visits he would be lost in his own thoughts.
We’d usually drive by the house at night and mainly in the winter months. Between Christmas and New Years. I wonder now if that’s when he remembered the good the most.
Each house was unique in this neighborhood of privilege and wealth. Different architectural styles and designs on each leafy street. His childhood home was palatial compared to our small starter home just several miles away on a street where each house was a sibling of its neighbor.
Every time was the same. We’d drive slowly down each street. Stopping just short of the house, he’d tell us again about the time his father carried him home from a neighbor’s party on New Year’s Eve. Speaking so softly and leaving so much out.
There were daytime drive-bys in warmer months, but those often involved a running commentary of who lived where and what they did for a living. Some of them accomplished or famous for something remarkable at the time. It didn’t carry the same gravitas without the snow.
For whatever happened in the house, it should have been easier for him. Two educated and talented parents coming from means. A charismatic public relations man and his beautiful artist wife. Their engagement celebrated on the society page of the Chicago Tribune. A good-sized photo of the happy couple posing on the staircase of the McCormick Mansion at 100 E Ontario downtown Chicago. They entertained, cooked gourmet meals, served the best cocktails, and got to know their wealthy neighbors.
A few days after my father’s funeral, I drove through the neighborhood and stopped at the house. Built in 1928, he and his twin sister were brought home to a house that was just thirteen years old in 1941. The wood, paint, and windows nearly new.
I sat in the driver’s seat of my father’s car considering the 96-year-old house that they called home all those years ago. A different perspective from the front seat without obstruction.
My own remembering. Listening for the whispers my impatience gone.
I know that I will come again just like today and I will take my time in front of the house that he loved to remember.
