Home Since Forever

(© WENDY MAEDA/GLOBE STAFF, The Boston Globe)

        I woke up at noon to no alarm, I hadn’t been setting it anymore because I didn‘t have the best sleeping pattern after my mom died. I hardly got sleep anymore. It was my day off from class, and I thought I’d do some shopping for the house and then head over to my grandmother’s with my brother since I promised I'd see her about 16 hours before. Thirty-two minutes after I woke up, strangely the doorbell rang and I heard my cousin walk up the stairs. My brother let her and my Aunt in, they walked into my room crying and said, “Grammy”.

       There was an accidental fire set to my grandmother’s home at around 2am in Methuen, Massachusetts. The home she cherished, the same home my grandfather built, my mother grew up in, and the one that each member of the family lived in at one point was destroyed. It was home to all of us. It was the one part of the family that stayed secure. And the one woman who held the family together, and me for that matter, didn’t get out in time, and she was so close to the front door. Otis, the dog that meant the world to her, lay 20 feet away in the living room gone as well.
       The article says that the fire most likely started in the kitchen, but it was not definite. All I could picture was that no more than seven hours before, I was standing in that kitchen making her crack up. The kind of laughing that makes your life worth living, where you cross your legs, hold onto whatever’s closest to you and laugh until no sound comes out anymore, as the tears run down your face. I loved when I made her laugh like that. There was honestly nothing better to me, in the world, than seeing my grandmother genuinely happy. She said something about me getting too tall as she always did, and smacked me in the stomach lightly and said, “Stop growing,” as I shrank down to her 5 foot frame and pretended to see the world from her view. I opened cabinets, looked out the window above the sink and looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Man, this is tough.” She laughed so hard, she thought it was one of the greatest things, and said, “Yeah, tell me about it!,” as well as, “Don’t make me pee my pants!” After we laughed for a little more, I told her I had to get going. I said bye to Otis and gave her a huge hug, kissed her on the check and said, “I love you,” and she did the same. She walked out onto the porch with me, I went down the stairs to the driveway and unlocked my car and she laughed at me for locking the car in “this neighborhood”. She closed the porch door, waved through the glass window, laughed and shook her head as she turned back into the house. I pulled out of the driveway and knew I’d be back tomorrow as I promised, which didn’t get to happen.
       “Thank God for Julien,” is what my grandmother would always say before she would tell a story about Julien Plourde, her next-door neighbord. Plourde said, “She was a sweetheart. We were all very close. She was a good woman, a good neighbor, a good friend,” and I know he meant that. I’ve known Julien my entire life. He’s always been the next-door neighbor that took care of Grammy. Always there when she needed him, and the only person on the street she would talk to about my mother’s death thirty-seven days prior to the fire. He came to my mom’s funeral, sat next to me during the mercy meal and I cannot thank him enough for being there for my grandmother at all times. I am forever grateful for him. These are the kind of things the article didn’t mention. He wasn’t just a longtime friend, or a next-door neighbord. He had become part of the family.
       Thankfully, this article points out how energetic, friendly and generous she was and stays faithful to that. I chose this one out of the others because of that reason, and of course because Julien commented in this one. Other articles list the value of the home and other irrelevant speculations that downgrade the purpose of the story, to honor her and Otis. Some also have other pictures, but they're incredibly hard to look at. Plus, I talked about a memory in the kitchen, and this shows it the best view, the right hand corner. I can vouch that she most definitely was what this article described. She was incredibly important to me and my family. She was the only person I could talk about my mother’s death with. She was always there for me and my family when things got hard, even other people including her neighbor Valerie whom she opened her home to when her house caught fire in November of last year. I will always be proud to call her and spoiled-rotten Otis, who ate better than any of us and got more “cookies" than anyone could imagine, my family. My grandmother was one of a kind. She had a very loud personality and she said what was on her mind, without remorse, and without filter. My family and I were talking the other day about her and we just thought, of course Grammy would make the news and papers when she died. It was just the kind of person she was and I will always love her for being her.

- Kristen Carraher