Sign of the Times

Over the holidays, my parents kept my niece and nephew, 9 and 6 years old respectively, for several days and nights while they were on vacation from their school, while my sister and brother-in-law were going to work. My parents apparently reached for new things to do at times to keep the kids semi-entertained and under control; one afternoon ended with them taking my niece and nephew on a driving tour of the small town in which they live, pointing out things they thought might be of interest.

One of the things they decided to spotlight on their little driving tour was the first house that they lived in when they first moved to their town. My sister was 3 and a half years old, and I was 3 months old, when they moved to the tiny little town that I grew up in. And their (I should say our, except I have no memory of it) first house in that town was a one-story brick house, neat and tidy and very cute and all but a bit on the smallish side. The house that they bought just a few years later, that I grew up in and that my parents still live in today, is a much older house, made mostly of wood not brick, but much bigger.

Well when my parents pointed out their first house to the kids, and explained that that's where they lived with my sister when she was little, before they moved into the house they live in now, my nephew asked them, quite somberly and seriously, "What happened, did you lose all your money and have to sell it?"

So funny and sad at the same time. Funny because, well, it's just funny that a six year old boy would come up with a question like that for my parents; and sad because with the economy as it's been this past year, which by the way coincides with my nephew being in first grade and attending public school for the first time, we figure he's picked up on the fact that a lot of people are having hard times, and maybe some of their parents are having to move out of their homes because they can't afford them anymore.

And I know I should be more touched by the sad implications than the funny ones in thinking about that story, at least if I was a good person I should be; but I can't help but laugh every time I picture that little kid asking my parents if they lost all their money and had to sell their house. Who knows, maybe he thinks the house they live in now looks more run-down than that newer though smaller brick house; I don't for sure what he was thinking when he asked that question, but he sure was serious about it.

Unfortunately for my nephew, he never did get an answer to his question; as my parents told me this story, and I asked them what they told my nephew, they looked at each other in surprise and said "well shit, we were laughing so hard I don't think we ever did give him an answer."