Front Porch "Moments"

The front porch of this old house on Layton, 2012.

The front porch of this old house has seen its share of family "moments."

Five generations have opened the door, slammed the door, let the cat in, let the dog out, posed for graduation photos, carried suitcases and boxes off to college, squeezed  wedding gowns through the portal, bundled in  new babies,  and heard,  "Don't stand there with the door open! You're letting the flies in!"

Yes, the door on this old porch has witnessed its share of comings and goings.

Take that day back in 1940 when my mother stood there waving goodbye to her sweetheart with no certainty of his sure return. The sweetheart, who would one day be my dad, came to the house for one last kiss as he shipped out to destinations unknown. All hell was set to break loose around the world, not just in my mother's heart. Dad would spend the Big War in fox holes throughout North Africa, Sicily, and Italy for five years. Imagine the reunion on this old porch in 1945 when that handsome soldier marched up the steps and took his wartime sweetie in his arms.

Then there was the time in the late 1930s when cousin Ida Mae Reid took her first look at the world outside from this old porch. Aunt Millie came to stay with her sister, Nana Evans, here in the house on Layton while her husband, Uncle Cliff, built a home for them right next door. Aunt Millie was eight months pregnant. In those days many infant deliveries occurred at home, and that's what happened. Aunt Millie gave birth in the room off the kitchen which I now use as my dining room. (If you ever come to eat in my home, I hope your appetite won't be hampered by dining in a birthing room.) The little girl, born a bit small, was bundled up by her aunts in warm cotton and shoved in the oven. You heard me . . . the oven. This homemade incubator kept the little one warm, not baked, until she grew big enough to be carried out on the porch for a look about. Ida Mae is now in her 80s and retired in Florida (perhaps the oven incubator predisposed her to warm temperatures.) Nevertheless, she is no worse for the wear because of her beginnings in General Electric's finest . . . on Layton.

I stood on the porch for a few final goodbyes. My Nana Evans died in that same room off the kitchen. I spent most of the last week of her life sitting beside her there.  I watched as the undertaker carried her out the front door, leaving for the last time the house that she and my grandfather had built.

Thirty-four years later, I stood on the porch, holding the door again, for another final goodbye. The EMT's carried mom out the door and into the ambulance after her fatal stroke. Two generations slipped off this earthly sod through this door on our old porch.

As much as I miss my mother and grandmother, I'm so grateful that the next door they entered, after leaving our family home, opened to a mansion on a street of gold, their new, heavenly home . . . not on a street called Layton.