Love is a Yellow House

My favorite color is yellow, and I know it’s a lot of people’s favorite color, but for me it goes deeper than the cheerful color.

I was such a lucky person who had such a good childhood. My grandparents lived in a yellow house with hardwood floors and loft bedrooms upstairs. The kitchen had a metal bread box and was green and white, almost ivy like wallpaper. My gram loved her kitchen and I loved anywhere she was. In those walls I have never felt such love as I did there. In those walls housed two people that were my favorite love story. My pap was about to marry someone else, and he left her at the altar and went to the local carnival and won a by today’s means scary looking dog and gave it to my gram and married her after such a short courtship.

I don’t want you to think that and then they lived happily ever after, my pap though he was one of my favorite people was difficult. I am also difficult. He had a short temper at times, but had never raised a hand to my gram. This was compounded by a diagnoses of diabetes. When his sugar was high he would scream, and say hurtful things to anyone he saw. My gram was caring and nurturing by nature. She was a nurse and went through nursing school later on in life. She made mostly all of our birthday cakes growing up. She had the patience of a saint. She made sure everyone around her was fed, happy, listened to and taken care of. We always had big family dinners on Sunday which was my favorite. Her spaghetti tasted like home. She would jar her own sauce in the fall sometimes. My pap also was kind, and funny, and straight to the point no matter what. He would go up to the Amish and would peddle groceries and barter for things like rabbits, goats, pigs, sheep, and ducks. I especially remember this around Easter. We wouldn’t get traditional gifts. We would get ones that were alive and one for each of us my sister and I. They also had the most epic Easter egg hunts at their yellow house, for all of the grandkids. They would often have friends of the family over for dinner as well and was always down for getting ice cream at the local ice cream shop.

The life lessons that I still take away from them are going to be with me no matter how much time has passed. The house also served as home for me and my mom and sister after our house burnt down. It was home. Love to me will always be symbolized by a yellow house.