1389 Hartsdale Avenue

Amy M Huber
Nov 5 · 3 min read
Illustration: Amy M Huber

I take the exit where my Google phone app instructs me to turn, onto a somewhat familiar main street. I’m heading to meet up with an old friend but something draws me to turn left down a road that was once flanked by tall, grassy, chigger and sticker-burr saturated fields that you wouldn’t want to walk through while wearing shorts and sandals. The road where the stray neighborhood dog that we let live on our back patio was found eternally sleeping. Halfway down the road the buildings are still standing where my sister and I once roamed. I turn right onto Hartsdale Avenue and right into the parking lot where we used to play kickball and made-up “don’t step on the lava” games with local kids. The buildings are now surrounded by chain-link fences and perhaps the paint on the housing trim has been changed but other than that it doesn’t feel that different. The first real home I remember was at 1389 Hartsdale Avenue in Dallas, Texas. I remember this because my mother set our address as lyrics to a chirpy little melody. I don’t know why out of all the times I visit Dallas, I chose this one to stop by my childhood home. There’s something about this neighborhood that I both love and find internally jarring. My friends have now moved to this neighborhood but it’s not a place that a lot of people would have visited when I lived there. Except of course the special ones who knew the pride of this part of the city.

Pulling into my mom’s old parking space, I sit there like a stalker planning their next move. This spot brings back flashes of memories. There’s the infamous time where my finger was accidentally shut in the car door and the nail later fell off (my sister and I both claim this story as our own). The time I ran away to the car to see how long it would take for someone to come looking for me. The times, that for $3–5, my mom would give the neighbors rides to the grocery store, until the car completely died. Still the same, are the steps and the concrete porch where we would wait daily for the postman. The beautiful southern red Iris plants still line the tiny green patch out front.

This is the home that always reoccurs in my dreams no matter the decade or circumstance. It’s always the one that my subconscious returns to. It’s the one I remember every detail of. From the tan and red bricks on the outside to the embarrassing clutter on the inside.

On the fourteen-step staircase, I remember the joys of singing and performing made-up plays for my mom as she sat in that burnt orange upholstered wooden chair. I remember longing to go outside as I peered through the blinds at the world while waiting for my mom and sister to get through the measles — an illness that I escaped because I was vaccinated. I remember the trees whose branches I swung from. I remember the children that were my first real friends.

This home was ripped away one very late night after Christmas had come
and gone and presents were unwrapped and barely played with. My sister and I would never again sleep there but we did go back to assist adults and salvage what items we wanted to keep. But how do young teens really know what to save?

I wonder who lives there now and if they are peering through the blinds at this strange woman parked outside of their home. I am curious what it’s like inside after all these years — if going in would relieve some pain. I consider walking up those concrete steps, knocking on the brown painted door, explaining my history with the space and asking to drop in. But I don’t. I don’t because these people don’t know me or what happened there. I don’t go because I don’t want to re-live the emotions that that old apartment will send crashing over me. I’m already silent and there’s a slight knot in my chest. Grief is never fully gone. Even when you work through it, it lives in your body’s cells and often silently impacts your life. So I sit in the car and feel the amount of feelings that I will allow in.

Amy M Huber

Written by

Amy M. Huber is an illustrator and designer who is excited to share her story through design, words and drawings.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade