A "Moving" Experience

A "Moving" Experience

         The thirty-year-old, seven-hundred square foot, two bedroom, one bath home where my wife and I lived the first year we were married was a comfy size for the two of us, and we enjoyed it immensely.

         Even after our son, Kevin, was born a year later, the place was sufficient to our needs. The second bedroom became a nursery for him, with a fresh paint job, new curtains and carpet, and a used, but carefully refinished crib and matching dresser. All was heavenly in our small piece of the world.

         Then an amazing thing happened. My wife and I awoke one morning to find that our tiny bundle of pink baby boy had become a rootin' tootin' two and a half year old, able to attack the rails of his baby bed and climb over and out with cat-like ease.

         The toilet bowl became his favorite plaything, as did every old-fashioned electrical outlet in the house. A child gate impeded him not one whit. We shut doors -- he opened them. We plugged the outlets. He easily unplugged them. Peace was a thing of the past as he zipped in a headlong run everywhere he went, cutting corners too quickly, knocking lamps crashing to the floor and standing on tip-toe to investigate the pot boiling on the stove.

         Suddenly, seven-hundred square feet was not enough for the three of us. Not nearly enough. And, though our first impulse was to see if the hospital had a refund policy, cooler heads prevailed and we decided to keep him and begin looking for a larger home within our modest budget.

         Finally, after six months of traipsing around behind our real estate agent looking at dozens of houses, none of which said "home" to us, and a nice raise in pay, we were able to afford a place near my job, in a much nicer neighborhood.

         The new home was nearly two-thousand square feet, brick, three bedroom and two baths. The closets were almost the size of the bedrooms in our old home. We were going to occupy the new place and hope our old home wouldn't stay on the market for long.

         On the day of our move my wife began packing up the kitchen things and relegated me to the bedrooms. Kevin was abnormally quiet, sitting on the floor in his bedroom playing some game with three stuffed animals understandable only to a three-year-old.

         I had all of his things packed in boxes and started on the master bedroom. Packing didn't take long. It's impossible to fit too much stuff into a house that small. Finished with the bedroom, I went to help my wife with the pots and pans.

         The moving van arrived and the men began loading our furniture and appliances first. The house looked larger when it was nearly empty, and I could once again see why my wife and I thought it so charming.

         It was a homey place, old but well-cared for, and the first home we owned. I felt an unexpected tightness in my chest. I was going to miss this place where our son was conceived; and the only home he knew.

         The big sink in the kitchen where my wife bathed him when he was an infant seemed suddenly priceless. The "artwork" he added to the inside of his bedroom closet with an untended Magic Marker seemed fitting for the Louvre. The memories of love and happiness seemed solid and palpable.

         My wife came into the living room and, seeing me standing there, put her arms around my neck and pressed herself close. I felt her silent sobs radiate through me and tipped her teary face up to mine. "It's going to be all right, Kari. We'll be just as happy in the new house once we get used to it," I assured her.

         She sniffed and nodded, but not very convincingly. We stepped aside as one of the moving men, red-faced and grunting, came from the hallway.

         Everything was finally loaded into the truck. Kari went to Kevin's room to get him and begin our journey to the new house. Then I heard her call out, "Dave? Where's Kevin?"

         "Huh? Isn't he in his room?" I asked, joining her. The room was completely empty. I snatched open the closet door and didn't believe what I was seeing. All of Kevin's toys I had so carefully packed were strewn on the closet floor. "What the . . ."

         Kari peered in around me to see if Kevin was hiding in the closet. When she saw he wasn't she dashed to the bathroom to check the built-in laundry hamper where he sometimes hid, while I walked the few steps to our bedroom. That closet, too, was empty. "He's not here," Kari yelled, panic edging into her voice. "Is he in there, Dave?"

         I had already left the bedroom and was now opening the doors beneath the kitchen sink. "No. And he's not in the kitchen." I saw that the lock on the kitchen door leading to the backyard was still in the locked position. "He must have gone out the front door," I said, racing through the living room and outside. Looking up and down the street I cried out, "Kevin! Where are you, Kevin?"

         No little boy with a smiling face came running to answer my call.

         I ran to the moving van. Both of the men were standing beside the back of the truck smoking cigarettes. "Did you see our son? He's three. He was in the back bedroom."

         The men looked at each other for confirmation, but then both said, "No," in unison.

         Kari came to the truck in time to hear my question and their answer. "I'm calling the police," she said, turning toward the house.

         Then we all heard the sneeze.

         One of the moving men tossed his cigarette down and jumped inside the back of the truck, not bothering with the ramp. He began moving boxes aside. Another sneeze. Kari and I ran up the ramp and began tearing open boxes. From behind me, Kari said softly, "Dave."

         I turned to see her on her knees by an opened box. Fine blond hair and blue eyes were visible above the top of the box. Kevin sat inside, looking up at her with a quivering lower lip. She lifted him out, hugged him, then held him at arm's length in front of her. "What are you doing in the box, honey?" she asked.

         His little shoulders shook and the most miserable expression I'd ever seen on anyone's face spread across his. He said something so softly we couldn't hear. "What, buddy?" I asked. "We couldn't hear you."

         Then his words came louder. Heartbreaking words. "I wanna go with you, Daddy!" He burst into full-scale crying then, wailing loudly.

         God, I realized -- he thought we were leaving him behind because we had packed everything else -- but not him. He had dumped his toys in the closet then crawled into the box himself.

         As we comforted Kevin and assured him he was going with us, I came very close to having the men unload everything from the truck back into the house. But the contract was already signed, and the move to the new home was our future -- for good or bad.

          And there was some of both. Kevin loved the large, well-tended backyard, and there were children his age next door and across the street.

         But there were things requiring adjustment for us all. In the old house, our bedrooms were only ten feet apart. The slightest cough during the night from Kevin could be heard and attended to promptly. The new house had the master bedroom on one side of the house and the smaller bedrooms on the other, some twenty yards distant. Kevin was uncomfortable being so far away from us and we would often find him sleeping on the floor at the foot of our bed come morning during the first weeks.

         The house was so large, compared to our old one, that we all experienced a sort of reverse claustrophobia. There was just too much room, and we caught ourselves congregating in the den more often than not, to recover some of the closeness to which we were accustomed.

         But all things become routine in time, and we spent twenty-two years in that house, making enough memories to last us forever.

The End

Author's note: This is a slightly fictionalized account of a true story.

DM