Grilled Cheese

I grew up a lot this week.
First of all, I now have grown up bedroom furniture. No more Ikea. This is incredibly exciting for me. Second, I paid off my college loans. I'm not sure I ever thought that would happen. Third, Thing One had career day. In first grade. She was asked to come to school dressed as who and what she wants to be when she grows up. She went as a "baby nurse." Her choice made me all sorts of messy and emotional because she really would be a fantastic baby nurse, and because all of a sudden I had to think about her all grown up. And that made me feel old, and sad. It also made me think about myself at that age, and all the things I once knew and loved and hoped to be.
Anyone who knows me, really knows me, knows about Wooded Lane. My family moved there when I was two, and my parents still live there today. It's a street that defines much of my childhood; the idyllic culdesac sprinkled with nearly identical split level homes separated only by their different colored siding and shutters. I made my first friends on Wooded Lane, friends who remain my friends to this day. One of those friends is of course Kim. As grown women, our friendship is best and most simply summed up as follows: she was my maid of honor, the first friend to meet my first child. She's that kind of friend.
Anyway, Kim's family lived in the house directly across the street from mine. They moved in when we were 9 or 10, but I had known her for years prior as she was also the "friend of a friend" who already lived on Wooded Lane, that friend being Natalie. Point being, I consider Kim to be someone I've known for most of my life. She has seen it all.
One of my most vivid childhood memories is that of our regular Saturday "playdates," for lack of a better word. Kim, Natalie and I would spend the day together doing whatever for hours at one of our houses. But when it came time for lunch, we usually ended up at my house for my mom's famous grilled cheese. We would sit in the kitchen, or out on the patio, and we'd eat our sandwiches with grapes, chips, and milk.
When I think about it, there's nothing really special about my mom's grilled cheese, but without question, they taste better than any other I've ever had. They're a simple combination of buttered bread and American cheese, but they're done right. Years later, I think we were in college at the time, Kim told me that when she's sad or homesick or simply feeling stressed, she closes her eyes and thinks about my mom's grilled cheese. It seems to make everything better.
And that's why what my mom told me yesterday made me cry.
You see, yesterday Kim's mom packed up her house and moved from Wooded Lane. The house is sold, and new neighbors will soon fill the rooms with their own belongings, prepared to make their own memories. It really is the end of an era. Natalie and her family moved years ago, as did most if not all of my other childhood friends and neighbors. So yesterday was for me a painful step in the whole "growing up" part of life. It was especially painful as Mrs. Mark is moving because her house is no longer the same happy place it once was. Mr. Mark, her love of 45 years, died just over a year ago at the far too young age of 58. She has been alone in the house since his death, and it's time for her to move out, move on, and begin again.
Yesterday was settlement for her, and to make a long story short, it did not go well. It had to be one of the most difficult days in her life. I cannot imagine. Having signed all of the necessary paperwork, she returned to the house to finish the move feeling justifiably overwhelmed and emotional. My mom stepped in and asked her to take a break and come over for lunch since there was no food left in her own kitchen. And so she did. And so my mom made her grilled cheese.
Just writing that now makes me cry.
Part of growing up, really growing up, is accepting that things don't always turn out the way you want them too. And what I wanted was for the Marks to live across the street from my family forever. I wanted to keep running from my house to her house on Christmas morning, like we did as kids and continued to do as adults! I wanted to keep seeing Kim in the driveway as she stopped in to see her mom, while I was there to visit my mom. I wanted our kids to wave to one another from across the street just like Kim and I did. But most of all, I wanted to keep waving to Mr. Mark when he walked to get the mail or bring in the trashcans. And I can't. Just can't. It just didn't turn out that way.
Instead Mrs. Mark will move in to her new house, one which I'm sure is soon to be filled with laughter and happy memories. It will be her home. And new neighbors will move in to the house across the street and will begin waving to me in my mom's driveway. From what I hear they have children, and perhaps their kids will wave to my own.
But there is one thing that will not change- the magical power of a simple grilled cheese. My mom can still make it for me, for Kim, and for Mrs. Mark. And I will make it for my girls, and Kim will make it for her daughter. Someday we'll make it for our children's friends. And with every single simple bite, maybe some things will feel as if they are in fact turning out just the way they should.