Into Grandma's Attic

Corry, Pennsylvania. Touring my grandparents' house with current owners Curt and Holly.

From the kitchen, Holly and Curt followed us up the back stairs to the landing where the kitchen stairs met the stairway from the parlor. The leaded glass window at the landing, still intact.

Up to the second floor. I peeked cautiously into each of the four bedrooms. Whew! Almost unchanged. Mine, the one I always used as a child, was at the rear of the house, in the northeast corner. One window offered a view of the back yard, a brick wall, and the "castle" beyond.

The house that backs my grandparents' home, the Hillstrom house, was not a castle, but is certainly a mansion. Even as a child, when I played dolls with the little girl in that home, I knew it was huge, grand, and special. For one, we took the elevator to the second floor. Second, when we played dolls, we sat in my friend's closet - a room larger than my bedroom.

But that house became most special at night, when the entire house was lit. I would gaze at it from my window, imagining a castle, pretending I was the princess who lived there but was being held captive. The memories are vague, but oh, I recognized that castle.

Next, we opened the door to the attic. "It smells the same!" I whispered.

Smells and their memories live so long with us. I had not been in that attic for at least 49 years, yet the recognition was immediate. Powerful.

Upward, carefully, breathing in that familiar musty smell. As we stood in that attic, Holly told us of finding a sheet of piano music with the name "Emilie Burr" written at the top. My mother? My grandmother? The paper is now tucked away in Cousin Bruce's files. Someday I'll see it, maybe recognize the handwriting.

How many times did I steal away up into the attic? Often to be alone. Sometimes to play with my sister and cousins - card games, mostly. We played wild games of four deck solitaire, slapping cards down on the sixteen piles of cards we surrounded, screaming with delight and dancing about when we won.

Eventually, down from the attic, down to the first floor, out to the porch. I paced that porch slowly, eventually standing in the exact spot my grandmother died so long ago. Feeling her, breathing her in. I swear she kissed me.