Remodeling This Life

My daughter spent much of today riding her bike up and down our street with my hubby next to her, one hand on her shoulder. I was able to watch, knowing he was holding on. I am recruiting for someone to photograph and take video when she’s ready for him to let go though, because I don’t think I can watch. I covered her in armor from head to toe and still worry.

I don’t even remember learning to ride a bike. I do remember my brother learning to ride a bike though. My dad took him to the top of a hill and let go. Seriously. Fortunately for my dad, it’s become a family joke rather than shrink’s office fodder. I told my mom on the phone today about my daughter testing the waters without training wheels and she said “oh, just take her to the top of a hill and let go!” Ha.

As I sat along our (at last) quiet street, watching her go back and forth in front of our home, I thought about how learning to ride your bike is usually something a kid will remember. Or any number of childhood momentous occasions – holidays, bloody noses, lost teeth, imaginary friends, the list goes on and on. I thought about how earlier this week, I discovered a box of old photos – some of me and my brother – and I had to call to ask my mom where I was in them. I was in the old fixer-upper farmhouse that we lived in until I was 6. Complete with yellow appliances, lots of wallpaper, and faux brick linoleum floors. I thought about the photo of me grinning ear to ear in the middle of that fixer-upper kitchen and it occurred to me that I don’t remember that room at all. I don’t remember anything but eating spaghetti one night and my brother falling asleep with his face flat in his plate of noodles covered in red sauce. I remember the night my dad walked into that kitchen with a stranger, blood gushing from his forehead after a car accident. I remember waiting in that kitchen for my grandparents to arrive to take my brother and me snowmobiling to the nearest Pizza Hut. I remember standing at that back door and watching cows graze.

I spent 6 years in that home, longer than either of my children has been alive. Not nearly long enough to form a slew of memories from it. But I remember enough moments for me to know now that it isn’t where we live, what it looks like, what it’s decorated like or how much fixing we’ve done. What these kids will remember is the things we did here. They are making memories. Not of the place, or the things inside it. But the moments – big and small – that make up who they will become.

She may never remember this house. But I bet she’ll remember the day her dad spent running up and down the street holding on tight while she rode without training wheels.