Putting my little girls to sleep tonight in their little lavender bedroom made me think about my little pink bedroom that I had growing up.  I lived in that simple wood-shingled high ranch house from age four to eleven, and it amazes me how vivid my memories remain from that time.

I don't even possess any snapshots of that little pink bedroom, but I can see it in my mind clearer than any photo.  The walls were a cheery pink, all the more vibrant for the lead that was still allowed in paint.  The room couldn't have been any larger than maybe 70 square feet, but it was my world, and contained everything a little girl (with a big imagination and before the advent of computers) could want or need.  

I had my student desk.  I was so excited the day I got that desk.  It was unfinished pine, with three drawers on the right.  My father stained, but didn't varnish it, and so the soft wood became a record of my heavy-handed scribbles.  

I had a yard sale-bought bedside table that was sandwiched between my twin bed and the desk.  A cheap clock radio that was a bonus for opening a savings account at the local bank played 70s hits as I drifted off to sleep-- the BeeGees, Chicago.

I had a dresser that matched the bed.  Five drawers, with my clothes neatly folded inside.  

The only other item was a simple bookshelf, which I kept dusted and neatly organized, which I turned into my own lending library, complete with little oaktag pockets I pasted in, for the date due card.

It was a whole universe to me, and I recalled all of these details tonight when my older daughter asked, "Mama, was your room always pink?"

She knew it was pink because because I told her, but it isn't now. My parents have held onto that house now for almost thirty years after we moved away, and it has had a series of tenants.  My mother and father were really lucky for the first several tenants; I don't remember hearing much about them at all.  But once they became absentee landlords, thousands of miles away, all of that changed.  

There was a lot of foreshadowing when I first heard about the last tenant, whom I will call Sam.  In the beginning, there weren't really any red flags, except that he was unemployed but had funds from some unknown source. My parents' understanding was that he was designer for airplanes.  But after maybe 6 months, the checks were always late, and I never understood why my parents did not enforce the terms of the contract Sam signed, to charge a late fee.  There were lots of excuses, and when I casually suggested that maybe they find a new tenant, I was called unsympathetic and heartless. Not my business anyway.  Later, there would be a lot of unexplained damage when my parents would inspect the house, which they only managed to do annually.  There were gashes and scratches on the doors and floors, water-damaged ceilings and floors, and strange lingering odors.

Eventually, my parents began to ask questions, and layers of ugly truth were revealed.  Sam had never been an airplane designer, but was at one point a detailer.  (No matter, he never worked while he lived in our house). He did have money from time to time, but raised always through illegal and unsavory means-- selling drugs, raising pitbulls (thus all the mysterious damage to the simple wood doors and floors), and apparently taking in fellow heroin users and subletters.  It made me sick to hear about what had become of my childhood home.  I did not want to imagine what was going on in the room that had been mine.

Sam would shape up and go to rehab from time to time, and my parents let him stay there, essentially rent-free, for several years.  Every time I offered my opinion that they should get rid of him, basing my strong feelings on my experience with the heroin users I had taken care of in the county hospital, they again told me to have more of a heart.  I did: I cared about my parents' finances, their safety, and the memory of my childhood home. I think that Sam somehow became my parents' personal charity.  But they may also have been afraid of him.

It took police and an eviction, five or seven years later, and tens of thousands of dollars in lost rent and accumulated damages, for Sam to be finally forced out of the house.  By then, I didn't even want to hear updates anymore.  And I never viewed for myself the ruins of the home I remembered.

My daughters went to see the house a few years ago when my brother, who had since taken over the duties of managing its rental, brought them to see how the remodel was coming along.  The damaged wooden doors and floors were sanded and refinished, better than new, all traces of illegal activity removed.   They saw my old room, which was of probably even smaller than I remembered.  My older daughter excitedly reported, "I saw your green room!"  "No, it was pink," I corrected her.  She asked, "Was your kitchen always granite?"  I laughed, "Definitely not," remembering the formica countertops and avocado green appliances of our 1970s kitchen.  The kitchen was simple, but it was where I had first learned to cook.

My brother took some digital photos and showed me later how the remodel was going along.  I really couldn't recognize any of it.   It looked really fancy. There was no reminder of either the simple home I remembered, nor of the house that temporarily was a squat for junkies. Times have changed a lot since I lived there.  Lead, which was added to paint for durability and to produce vibrant colors, has since long been outlawed.  One day, I'll search my parents' old photo albums for the snapshot that must exist of my little pink room.   My daughters are tickled, imagining their mama as a little girl in her little pink room.  But that room will never again exist, having had a life itself, going from an innocent childhood, through a very dark and turbulent period, and being remodeled in an extreme makeover, transformed beyond recognition.

© Linda Shiue, 2010