Louis Roney: On the street where we live

“It takes a heap of livin’ to make a house a home.” The above words are attributed to Edgar A. Guest, American poet, who was much favored by sentimental hoi polloi, a couple of generations ago.

My b.w. and I have done 35 years of livin’ to make our house a “home.”

The structure we bought had all the potential to become the place where we could live, work, socialize, and enjoy life. Ours is not the grandest house in the neighborhood, but I believe it may have its own special charms.

For 24 years, I taught at the local big university. At the end of each day I was drawn magnetically back to that one house. You, who have a tinge of romantic blood, may have suspected that my story contains more than one character – and you’re right!

You see, whenever I returned home and encountered another car already in the garage, a spark was generated in my heart. I had the thrill anew everyday of “coming home” to b.w. That the b.w. made it, for me, a mansion on the highest hill.

When she answers my entering “hello”, I knew why people buy houses. Houses are places in which to keep very precious things – far from the madding throng of the outside world.

There are special times when one uses a house to fill it with friends, to celebrate some occasion or other. Certainly one doesn’t need such room for oneself, even when multiplied by two. There is a special comforting feeling when two people are separated far apart in their own house and realize that a voice call will generate an answer from afar.

The nadir of my life’s natural cheer came when they carried my b.w., ill with leukemia, from our home to the hospital. Time spent then in the house turned from lonely to torturous. No matter the many hours spent by her hospital bed, the indeterminate time always arrived for me to go home alone to an empty house. Soon I realized I was subsisting on a cup of coffee in the morning, and not much more.

My daughter who lives in Connecticut sensed that I was loosing my grip on the stuff that keeps an old man glued together. She came down to Florida and stayed 10 days – and having her by me got me back on track. She was able to drive and I, by then, had lost so much sight that I could no longer dare to do so.

No sooner had she returned to her family when an angel of mercy from Seattle came to grace our house for some three weeks: Lorene, a former Floridian and former UCF voice-student of mine. Lorene was a godsend.

She and I talked together much in the evenings when the hospital day was over – a welcome companionship. Lorene’s husband was a doctor and her knowledge made her an excellent nurse.

My b.w. was mending slowly. The doctor finally told me that she was now out of mortal danger, but her recovery would require total rest when she came home.

The day finally arrived and b.w. was brought into our bedroom and put into the big antique bed where my great-grandfather and great-grandmother had slept during their long marriage – a sanguine touch.

Lorene’s return home to the west coast meant that I was finally alone in the house with b.w. once more. Mornings, I began to sleep a little longer before going to b.w.’s bedside.

Then came the day: b.w.’s voice was calling from the kitchen that there was coffee waiting for me.

The very floors and rafters seemed to rejoice and sing out, “I am your home once again.”