Reruns

Tonight it is my sister's turn to pack her bag, leave her husband and home and climb into my old bed at our mother's house. Tonight she will hear the same stories (verbatim), be shown the photos in the album (again) and eventually help Mom up the stairs, those stairs that get steeper every day. Tonight I enjoy the luxury of my own home with my family and new conversation. My sister carries my burdens for me, tonight I carry hers.

We celebrate a milestone in our family. Our grandson Brandon has turned six and so we celebrate in the usual cake and ice cream way with our off key voices raised to him and his baby sister mesmerized by the candles. We celebrate with pizza for supper, his half eaten on his plate so he can sit near his presents, ready, anxious. We take our celebration to my mother's house, to her dining room with the butterflies on the wallpaper, the plates with the names and pictures in bright colors, all places of our father's journeys, business trips where he thought of us, of her and brought her these china memories.

With less than three weeks to their wedding Joel and Kelley come to share Brandon's time, to be part of his day. They stand with us and sing and as I watch my nephew he becomes the six year old with Osh Kosh overalls and matchbox cars in his pockets. The memory visceral. We tell Kelley the story of another birthday, a birthday with a Dukes of Hazard cake on this table. Her soon to be cousin Lacey initiates her into the family ice cream scooping debate and Lacey's son and daughter watch her, watch us and learn more about who we are, who they are and where it all fits.

And through it all there is music, not the radio, not an album from the collection stored in the 'hi-fi', but real music from the piano, a player piano that requires a player to pump the pedals that scroll the music that moves the keys. The kids dance, I sing the words that are printed along the scroll and Mom's feet tap without hesitation to the notes. I look at the pictures that rest on top of the upright and there is our father, at the piano with us.

Tonight it is my sister's turn for the memories of our family to swirl through the house for her. Her turn to hear the echoes of our childhood and allow them to lull her to sleep. Her turn to be surrounded by the silence that will come after the presents are opened, after the candles are blown out, after the ice cream has melted into the frosting. Hopefully, with the echoes stirred the silence won't be as strong and she will sleep.