Alvarado, Texas

My mom was born in Alvarado, Texas. I spent some wonderful childhood days at my Aunt Erin's house. One of those old clapboard houses that seem to go lopsided from the center. The bathroom was drooping at a 45-degree angle headed north; the bedroom floor was printed vinyl in a Victorian rug floral print. Very tall beds covered in beautiful old quilts smelling of age. My mom and I would sleep in the same bed; lying in the dark she would tell me stories of her childhood in Alvarado. My aunt had a room and board, so couple of the bedrooms had their own little kitchenettes, built into the wall. Floral curtains hung to hide a sink and such. On the side of the house where the bathroom felt like it was sliding off, was a screened-in porch and narrow stairway, also weirdly angled. As a child, this just added delight to our visits, hide-n-seek adventures. Most of my family is buried in the old Alvarado Cemetery. After all funerals, we would all meet at Aunt Erin's, sit on the front porch, drink coffee, united in our grief.

My aunt died leaving her house and belongings to her church. Years later mom and I drove by the old place to look and reminisce. The house was vacant and left to rot by the church, all antiques long gone and sold. I had broken in at the back door. Mom would not come in with me. But on the back porch sliding off the house were three boxes. The only thing the church did not take and sell for profit, left as trash. I rummaged through them and realized they were all of her correspondence with us, her family, her little pieces of paper written to herself as reminders, pictures she liked cut out of magazines. Three boxes of treasures! Ha, the church had left the most important part of her. And I took them all. My mom and I went through every scrap of paper, crying, remembering, and laughing. She was a funny old maid and I have boxes of papers to prove it!

And when I get homesick for Texas, I just go here. Or I talk to Amy, Charlotte or Ruth.