I was still very young when we moved from Northside Drive to Honeysuckle Lane. My sister only lived in the old house a few months before we moved. All I remember of the Northside Drive house was watching my brothers play and being too young to join them, especially in the tree house my oldest brother and our neighbor built. They nailed boards to the tree trunk to make a ladder, and I was too short to reach the first one.
Seven people living in a three-bedroom house meant all three boys slept in one room, the baby girl and my grandmother in another, and my parents in the larger master bedroom. I could make a lot of noise but had trouble making words. I was too young for anyone to suspect I had a stuttering problem. They thought I was just too young to make words and sentences properly.
Being in the middle often meant no one would notice me if I was quiet, so I was quiet often. Even then, getting a lot of attention made me nervous. Years of psychotherapy couldn't come up with many theories on it either. I guess I was just born nervous.
Everyone wanted to see the baby. That was fine by me. The older boys had all the freedom in the world. While it looked like fun, it intimidated me. I wanted a piece of it, although I never got it. With all this going on, it was often difficult to get Mother's attention. With three other children, her own mother to take care of, and all her leagues and clubs, her schedule was pretty full.
Playpens were fairly common then. Essentially, it was a cage painted with stars, cows, moons, and other things that interested children. Parents could put their toddlers inside, and they couldn't wander off. The baby was safe in their playpen, and whoever was minding them didn't have to pay so much attention. Playpens are effective until the baby gets strong enough to climb out of them. I don't know if they were supposed to leave a lasting impression on the children who were left in playpens, but I remember being in mine.
My mother enjoyed telling about how she asked her teenage niece to watch over me. It wouldn't be difficult since I was in the playpen. She set my playpen in the front yard with my cousin Libby watching over me, which worked fine until some of Libby's teenage friends came to see her. While they were busy talking about the things teenage girls talk about, nobody was paying much attention to me, so they missed the point where I threw off my diaper and began my climb out of the pen. Libby snatched me up before I made too much progress from the playpen to the street, but it gave her a big scare, and she was mortified that her friends saw the whole affair.
My father began spending less and less time at home as his career began to take off. I remember him having uniforms to coach my brother's pee wee baseball team, and he had his own imitation buckskin tunic to wear when he took them to Indian Guides. There wasn't time for any of that with me. When I was older, I asked why there were no photos of my pee wee baseball team. I could tell it hurt my mother when she said there wasn't enough time for me to play, so I never asked again.
They signed me up for Indian Guides, but when I noticed that my dad was the only one missing nearly all the meetings, I asked if I could stay home. If I diddn't go to the Indian Guide meeting, nobody would noticed my dad wasn't around. I bragged about spending breakfast with him, which was true, but still not the same as having him there. He worked to make time for me, but there was less and less of it to spare as his life became more complicated.
My place of refuge was Martha Hammond's kitchen. The Hammonds lived behind us. She had children, too, but they were older. Some were even teenagers. We would watch television together and talk. Martha Hammond was probably the first person I ever really talked to. I know she was the first person who ever much listened. I don't know how much a four-year-old might have to say that's interesting, but whatever it was, she listened, and her listening made an impact on me.
Everything is potentially traumatizing for small children, but moving can be particularly confusing. The house on Honeysuckle Lane was easily twice the size of the house on Northside Drive. I had a semi-private bedroom where a large partition defined my space from my brother's, and we each had our own closet. We had new neighbors, but I missed the old ones, particularly Mrs. Hammond. Already an insecure child, something about moving made it worse.
One day, as he came home from work, my father found me under my grandmother's bed, crying.
"What's wrong, buddy?" He asked.
"I don't know where I belong," I answered, refusing to come out from under the bed.
Daddy laughed. "This is your house, buddy. You belong here!"
"No, I don't. I don't belong here. I don't belong anywhere!" and, still, I refused to come out.
Hearing this conversation, my Mother sat on the side of the bed and asked if I would come out when supper was ready. I said I would try. My parents left the room, but I could tell they were amused at my predicament. Children say the funniest things. It didn't seem funny to me.
I don't know what prompted this feeling of not belonging. I think it was always there. I think it's still always there. I suspect moving had something to do with what made it worse that day, but it might also have been that my difficulties in communication were beginning to surface. I was becoming aware that I couldn't say what I was trying to say. The stutter made it difficult for me to string the words together in a way that expressed what I meant.
Without the sanctuary of Martha Hammond's kitchen, when not watching television, I began sitting in the window seat to the breakfast room, where I could watch my mother as she organized the household. Without communicating, I could watch the actors cross the boards of this household drama as I became increasingly detached from it.
One day, my mother loaded her car to take my brothers to baseball and do the grocery shopping, leaving my grandmother and the maid to watch over me and the baby. This wasn't all that unusual, but something unsettled me. As they drove away, I ran to the window seat to watch her station wagon go down the driveway, then to the front window to see them drive down Honeysuckle Lane to turn on Meadowbrook Road.
Something panicked me. I ran out of the front door and ran to the edge of the lot, as close as I could to stepping a foot on the forbidden Meadowbrook road. "Mamma!" I cried. "Mamma! Mamma! Come back, Mamma!" If I screamed loud enough, maybe she'd hear me and come back. "Mamma! Don't leave me!" I shouted. Hattie, the maid, heard the noise I was making and came out to find me.
"Come on inside, Mr Boyd. You know she'll be home directly." She said, trying to pull me away from the street. I dropped to my knees, "Mamma! I'm still here, Mamma! You left me! Don't leave me! I'll be good! Don't leave me!"
The crying made it hard to speak, even hard to see. I curled up in a ball on the front lawn. Hattie picked me up, carried me inside, and put me on the bed in my grandmother's room. Nanny sat on her rocking chair beside her bed and assured me that Mother would be home and everything would be alright.
This memory would come and go and change places many times in the conversation in my mind. It's held different meanings for me at different times in my life. First, Hattie, the maid, died, then Nanny, my grandmother died, then my Mother died. Sometimes, this memory returns now as a nightmare when I remember my mother is gone in my dreams. No amount of screaming or calling her name will bring her back. Consciously, I know this and can deal with it rationally, but when I close my eyes to sleep, the rational world loses its grip, and I'm a little boy who hides under beds again.
There have been times when I lost so much and lost so many people that I began to wish I would be the next one to go so that I wouldn't again be the little boy crying fruitlessly for somebody to come back on the corner of Honeysuckle and Meadowbrook. Maybe I was an insecure child because, even as a child, I knew life doesn't last. You have to live for the moment because the moment is all you have.
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