Castles on the Wall

The Castles hung in his den, which we rarely used. They hung in the room we awkwardly crowded into years ago, that first Thanksgiving after his diagnosis, when we weren't sure how much time we had but we worried the time we had was short. It was too formal a space for our typical Thanksgiving banter and debate and storytelling and worry. But it felt like the room we were supposed to be in.

If I ever noticed the Castles before he died, I don't remember that moment. They're a striking pair, beautifully framed, original paintings of castles to which we have no familial ties. Perhaps he mentioned them to me at some point, asked me if I'd ever been nearby, seen them in person. I'm not even sure if they still stand, perhaps the paintings themselves are pictures of ghosts, Cornwall must be bursting with not-important-enough-to-maintain castles.

We wandered the house after he died, knowing that every thing in its place would soon not be in its place any longer. Couldn't we just keep the house a bit longer, just let it rest, let it miss him? The half-hearted pointing and, "yeah, I guess that might look good in our second bedroom" rings so loud, achingly hollow. I don't want the damn end tables, I want him here. But I guess if they're just going to be sold to someone who doesn't know who they belonged to, hell, yes, I want them.  At least I know where those end tables sat, wooden bookends to the couch we all loved. I know the (not my style) lamps that sat on top of them. I know whose crossword puzzle was tossed there.

I have always been surrounded by him here.  When I bought the house he sent me gorgeous, impossible to fit anywhere mustard colored chairs, a blue ceramic lamp that now sits beside my couch, a mirror that probably cost more than our bed. On birthdays and when I got married he filled the house with pots, pans, kitchen gadgets. Even our collection of coffee mugs has his imprint. Knowing my husband's fascination with Waffle House, he gifted him with a holiday Waffle House coffee mug for Christmas. The thought in that mug still destroys me. I keep it tucked in the back of the cupboard so its presence doesn't wreck me unawares on a Tuesday.

But those things were deliberate gifts. He touched them, decided they were ours. The Castles are only here because I chose them. They are beautiful, and they watched us eat Thanksgiving  turkey, heard our prayers for healing (and for each of us, if not out loud, "if he can't be healed, Lord, at least give us more time than we deserve"). They're prettier than anything else we own on these walls, they're more sophisticated than we are, and they do not belong here.  They belong in his house, in the room we didn't use.  They should be hanging on those walls, an occasional conversation piece but largely forgotten, pictures of ghosts.

They will never be my Castles. They are simply more than I find myself desiring, they're lovelier, older, more impressive than I'd elect. And that makes sense, because they belonged to a man who was more than I deserved. More faithful, more generous, more loving, more kind. And while his choice in art was more classically lovely than I'd choose for myself, he also gifted us with Waffle House mugs, so the pretty inherent in all of his things holds little pretension. The Castles now hang just above our dining table. We don't have a room that goes unused because this home is 890 square feet. There is no den to tuck the prettiest of things, even the prettiest of things have to mingle with the hand-me-downs and Target clearance in this house. But they hang where we pray before supper. They hang where I sometimes work from home, laptop angled to the windows. They hang where we host friends, where we make decisions, where we lay out our passports before traveling. They hang where we live and their prettiness fits in well here, in our new Life Without Uncle Buck. It's a life that misses him, speaks to him, hears his "hey sweetheart" so damn clear, and it's a life that now has Castles on the wall.