Alice

Alice was 29 years old when I was born. She was 34 when my brother, Kenneth, was born. When Alice was 35, she and my father, Durward, moved into the house on Lafayette Avenue. I started school that year. When Alice was 47, I graduated from high school. When she was 52, I graduated from college. Alice still lived in the house on Lafayette. She had lived there for 17 years.

After 5 years and suffering from a severe anxiety disorder with panic attacks, I left my job and moved to another city.  Alice was 57. For a short while I traveled the country in a van with my dog Shadow. My anxiety and panic attacks made it impossible to work and nearly impossible to do anything normal, so I moved back home to the house on Lafayette. I stayed there for 12 years. While I was there Alice retired. She was 65 and had lived in the house on Lafayette for 30 years. Eventually a friend who knew about my anxiety problem offered me a job. It was win-win. I had an income and he had a less expensive employee than he could otherwise have hired. I moved to take the job. Alice was 69. She had been living in the house on Lafayette for 34 years.

Eight years later her husband of 50 years, my father, died. Alice was 77 years old and had been living in the house on Lafayette for 42 years. She lived there alone for another nine years until she died at age 86. By then she had lived in the house on Lafayette Avenue for 51 years.

She always hated the tiny kitchen.