Over. Done. Finished.

My mom's move.

After this past week of almost continual packing and packing, after greasy fast food meals due to lack of time and desire to make anything substantial, after sifting through issues of 'Popular Mechanic' from the 1960's and various other sentimental, moldy items, it's all over.

Thank God.

There was very little sentiment. Not much emotion. Certainly a lot less than I thought there would be at leaving the house where I grew up. The closest we actually got to it was when my mom and I sat on the back porch of the house. We talked for over an hour. Soaking in the sun. Wishing my dad were still alive and playing 'What If' with the idea that he hadn't died. Wishing it wasn't the last sunset we would enjoy on the deck. Wishing it would get cold as the sun set, giving us an excuse to go back in and finish packing.

It was around 6:30 pm or so. We stayed out there for over an hour, talking. My mom, dad, and I had always enjoyed watching the sun set from the back porch. On summer days, it was especially comfortable and beautiful, and that night was no exception. The sky would turn a rich royal blue. The leaves on the trees to the left of our unusually large urban backyard would turn an almost golden green. Golden green. If you watched the sun set long enough, and you were lucky, the clouds just above the horizon would turn violently pink, harshly pink. Longer, and the moon would appear. Then stars. Cheesy, but, it was from staring out the window of my west facing bedroom that I learned to appreciate how beautiful colors could be. Simple natural colors.

Once, as a kid, I remember lying on a lawn chair on the back porch on one of those warm summer nights that feel like they go on forever. My parents were just a few feet away, quietly, calmly chatting. I picked one star above me and watched it track all the way across the sky for what seemed like, and probably was, hours. So peaceful. Like I said, it was a Summer Night. Perfect temerature. Parents peaceful, and I lay in that comfortable mattress-fortified lawn chair, staring up with 8 year old boy wonder at a single star, thinking my 8 year old boy thoughts. I've never, never had a night like that since. I wonder if it's even possible.

That deck was also where I learned to barbecue. My dad taught me. He did it casually, and, in the summertime, the deck was where dinner was grilled. No point being in the hot humid kitchen when you could stand shirtless on the deck over a fire. Smoke making your eyes water, but at least you were on the deck. Outside.

My dad loved that deck. And our backyard. He would come home after his blue collar day, change into some swim trunks, and head out to the backyard. He had rituals. He would water the lawn using a hose. Always concerned about the lawn. Then, he would spray water all over the deck and the plastic furniture to cool it off for himself. Then, he'd raise the umbrella, have a seat and a drink, or maybe do some cooking. On the nights when there was a Cub's game, he'd take his little 9 inch black and white TV out of his other refuge, the basement, and watch it with a few beers. Outside. In the relative cool. On the especially hot nights, he'd set our garden hose to a fine mist, somehow hook it up over his chair, and let a fine spray shower his thin hair, chubby gut, and skinny legs. My dad loved that deck. He built the entire thing himself. It sat six, comfortably.

We also played kickball in that backyard. Three kids. One dad. Always enough for two two-man teams. Kick it into one of the yards on either side next door: Foul ball. It was a triumph to kick the ball over the garage and out into the alley. Automatic homerun. When I got old enough to do it every time, my little brothers complained. "No fair!" Of course, after that, I couldn't be on dad's team any more. My dad also attached a basketball hoop to the garage for us. We played on dirt, dirt that used to be the area of the yard that was the garden where, when I was young, my dad actually managed to grow corn. I remember being a kid and skulking through the tall rows as if they were my own homegrown maze. Anyway, when dad got older, he wasn't very mobile anymore, but you could always count on him to sink one from the far outside. When both of my little brothers actually managed to outgrow me and end up safely inside the 6'+ range, leaving me behind at 5'10'', it was me who started to cry foul. Now, they couldn't be on the same team anymore.

The backyard was also where I learned a very unique lesson: Chickens cannot swim. Back before my neighborhood became developed, back before sports bars and Starbucks and steakhouses, a corner on Lincoln and Cullom was devoted to a chicken coop. It was a remnant of the early part of the century, where people could go and buy live chickens who were raised right there on the spot. At least once, a chicken escaped. It wandered through the streets for four blocks or so before it happened to cross in front of my house. The way my mom tells it, I ran in shouting "Big Bird! Big Bird is outside!" We took the chicken in, and let it live overnight in the playhouse my dad had built for my brothers and I. The next day, I made a decision. I'm not sure if I thought it was hot, or if I thought the chicken might enjoy it, but I picked the bird up and tossed it in to one of the many plastic kiddie pools we would own. I watched it swim frantically, feathers waterlogged, around the edge of the pool, again and again in a circle. I must have become bored, and I went inside, forgetting about the poor, doomed bird. When I came back a few hours later, I found the chicken floating in the pool. Asleep. Deeply. So much so that I told my mom that I couldn't wake him up. When she came out to investigate, my mom informed me as gently as she could, that Big Bird was, in fact, in Heaven now. I cried so much. I had killed Big Bird. I'm laughing now as I write this, but I remember sitting on the deck stairs, bawling my eyes out over my poultrycide, watching as my mom wrapped the chicken in newspaper, and tossed him in the garbage can.

I guess I got over it.

Yesterday. The last day in my childhood home, we briefly debated whether or not to scatter some of my dad's ashes in the backyard he loved so much. In his garden, maybe. Or under the basketball hoop. Or maybe under the spot where the kickball homeplate used to be. Knowing it was likely that we'd never be back to visit whatever spot we chose, we didn't do any scattering. He was just going to have to settle for coming with mom to the new house. I know, I know it's cheesy to say that we all left a little piece of ourselves there anyway. But we really did.