RUNNEMEDE REMEMBERED

Growing up in a small town in Southern New Jersey


Thursday, May 29, 2008

Untitled -- about one of the Runnemede house's rooms

One of the last times my mother was ill -- so ill I was called home to see her for the last time -- I remember so vividly the room in which she lay. It was summer. She was in the "back bedroom." That was the room that would abut the kitchen and if the kitchen had a door would have gone directly into that room.

Her room was stuffy, even with the windows open. There were two windows in that room, and the bed in which she lay was between those two windows. I recall that the shades were always pulled down to try to keep the room cool, with just about six inches of light showing at the bottom.

The room was what I would classify as ugly. It had been my brothers' room. The lower 2/3 of the room was papered with contact paper in a brown, faux paneling design. The upper 1/3 was painted an ugly dark tan. The other furniture in the room was a bureau and dad's armoire.

Dad's armoire had to be in that room because there was no room in the main bedroom which also had a bureau, mom's vanity, their bed, and dad's desk, as well as a bookcase, and oh, yes, dad's high boy. And Dad had to have an armoire because the house had only one small closet, a hall linen closet, and the space between those two with shelves which was located in the bathroom, such space not being a closet, but more like an overgrown medicine cabinet.

The main bedroom was very, very crowded. I doubt that at my present girth I would be able to walk around in that room if it was still so full of all that furniture.

So, today, I was thinking about that room and what was NOT mom's last days. Don't know why I thought of it because today, here in N KY the weather was super. Not too hot at all, and it was an open-the-windows day, which I did (open the windows, that is).

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