Issue 59: A Heart Transplant

What do content creators do when they don’t know what to do?
When writer’s block seems unwavering, what is the wrecking ball that breaks down every wall?

I googled “Top Ten Ways to Get Past Writer’s Block.” But before the results even loaded, I knew my answer: they rank and they debate. It’s easy, it’s engaging, it’s endless. This was my first thought after months of not writing. Seemed like I could get the ball rolling with some BuzzFeed-style lists and rankings.

Butter Substitutes (You Won’t Believe Number 3!!)

1. Margarine

2. Olive Oil

3. I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter™

 

Or maybe

 

Cuts by Depth

1. The First (according to Rod Stewart)

 

But even as I started writing them, it felt like a cheap gimmick. Something a deeply intelligent and emotionally nuanced audience such as yourselves would see right through. At work the other day, I heard a guy named Caleb passionately argue Michael Jordan over Lebron and knew, in that moment, debate and ranking formats were dead. That said, there is one ranking debate that has been going on for years in my life that is still worth revisiting:

Which brother is our parents’ favorite?

Over the years, my brother and I have both had plenty of evidence for why the other is clearly the favorite. When the topic arises, it looks less like two lawyers presenting a case and more like a self-deprecating verbal boxing match. We throw punches, counter jabs, and parry accusations like Tyson vs. Ali (which boxer is the G.O.A.T.? Sound off in the comments below!). However, over the last few years, I had the knockout punch locked and loaded: my parents turned my childhood bedroom into a craft room. His room, on the other hand, remained untouched like a pair of open arms that said, “We’re always ready for you, son, come home.” My furniture, on the other hand, was moved to the guest room as if to say, “Come and stay… while you’re passing through.” 

Now, however, my best argument is being packed in a box and sent two and a half hours away. After 25 years, my parents are moving from my childhood home. It took me a while to realize, I’m not just losing the argument, I’m losing the room, the house, the neighborhood, the backdrop of my entire childhood. That room used to be my best evidence. Now, it’s just more square footage on Zillow.

While I’m excited that my parents are moving to be closer to my wife, soon-to-be-born daughter, and me, I’m struggling to come to grips with the fact we’ve already had our last Christmas in the room where every Christmas memory I have was made. That living room has seen 25 Christmases. It has heard the excited pitter patter of two young brothers racing to see what Santa brought and the “I don’t care but also I really am excited” totally cool and casual steps of two teenage brothers. It has heard the paws of our “first kids” in my dog Hazel and Cole’s cat Sandy. The room where we fought over toys, fell asleep to football, and eventually learned to help clean up without being asked. And now, quietly and without ceremony, that era has ended.

It feels strange to mourn a house, especially when you’re gaining something so wonderful in return. But that space wasn’t just where we celebrated; it was where we grew up, grew apart, grew back together. It was the silent witness to so much becoming. And even though I’m glad they’re moving closer, I can’t help but feel like something sacred is being left behind in the process. 

It’s more than just a house that is being left behind. I no longer have a built in excuse to go back to my hometown. Before, when I visited, it felt like the town was waiting for me to return. Now, I imagine, it will feel like it went on without me. Franklin needed someone to come back every now and then to tell it how it had changed and remind it who it really was. Now, I’m not a returning local. I’m just a visitor with oddly specific memories. More than anything, the same catalyst for my parents moving is the main thing I’m mourning about the house: Emeline.

My due-any-day-now daughter, Emeline, is one of the main reasons Mom and Dad (Lolli and Pop) are moving. I’m not the most sentimental person. I’m not even the most sentimental brother between Cole and me. I can wrap my head around all we’ve written above and tell myself it’s a new chapter. However, there is a part of me that always expected to share my childhood with my daughter. I always imagined she would get to step into the story I’ve worked so hard to write. The traditions we’ve hand crafted. I always imagined pointing to a corner of the living room and saying, “That’s where I sat the year we got the pinball machine,” or watching her be a princess or soccer star in the same backyard where I was Tarzan and Peyton Manning. I thought we’d share space the way people share stories, passed down, lived in, made new. But instead of that inheritance, she’ll have stories. A drive-by tour. A handful of photos and a dad who gets a little quiet every time they pass a brick house with a wreath on the door. She’s not returning to something, she’s being introduced to it. Franklin, and a drive past the house, will be more like a museum exhibit called ‘Dad’s Youth: A Retrospective.’

Maybe it’s not even that I wanted her to share the memories I made there. Writing this made me realize I’d been quietly hoping Emeline might pick up the baton. Somewhere deep down I have harbored a hope that maybe my best friend growing up, Keith, who lived three doors down, would also have a daughter and they would make memories together when we were both home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Keith and I used to tear up those streets on bikes and Ripsticks. I like to think, if he has a daughter one day, that they wouldn’t play “Race down the big hill on your bikes and slam on your front brakes to see who doesn’t flip over the handlebars”, but maybe they would come up with their own, less dangerous, games. They would pause and resume annually around the holidays. Now, any attempt to recreate that would require effort and intention, not the effortless magic we had. Maybe that’s the real loss: the effortlessness of belonging. I guess I had this vision of being her Franklin sherpa. I would help her navigate through what it means to live life in the house, and town, I grew up in. However, maybe it’s better she gets to build, not inherit.

She won’t remember the toy closet door opening on its own because of the ghost (air conditioning) or the excitement of finally being tall enough to open the attic without standing on a chair, but she will know, deeply, the people who made that space feel like home, no matter which house they are living in. My parents moved to the house in Franklin when I was 5 and my brother was 2. In that house they have been parents to toddlers, to play dates, to birthday parties where the cake was meant to be smashed and thrown. They have watched little kids go to their first days of school, learn to spell and read, learn every day isn’t Tuesday and the beach isn’t just around the corner. They taught two young boys that the first step in being a man is taking responsibility for your actions, they taught that by example, they lived out their faith and watched their sons become sons of God. They tossed first keys and comforted first heartbreaks. They sent sons to college and reminded them often they could always come back home for Mom’s cooking. They met, fell in love with, and claimed as daughters two women who make their sons happier than they ever thought possible. They prayed many prayers, saw many answered, and lived many lifetimes in that house. When I see my parents, I see every version of them superimposed over each other. All those moments, lived between those walls, make them who they are to me. I know they don’t unbecome those people when the moving truck pulls out for the last time, but there is something about a house that holds ghosts of who we used to be. The romantic in me loves the fact the new house will begin with my parents becoming grandparents and all the ghosts of themselves they create there are rooted in Emeline, their new favorite.