THE LAUNDRY ROOM DOOR

Shortly before moving from our home at Kennebunk Beach, 17-year-old grandson Max telephoned. “Hey Grandma, I hear you’re trying to get rid of stuff. Can I have the laundry room door?”

Hello?

Not the wagon we used to haul him to the beach on sunny summer days. Nor the oak rocker where I held him on my lap and read “Goodnight Moon.” But this is no ordinary six-panel white Colonial-style door. For the past two decades its purpose has been more vital than hiding the Maytag washer-dryer stackables that were visible from the adjacent dining room table. 

Specifically, on September 9, 2004, two-year-old Max stood proudly with his back and shoulders pressed flat against the door while Grandpa stretched the metal Stanley measuring tape from Max’s toes up to his curly red hair, then pencilled 3’2” on the center panel. The big smile on the freckle-faced ginger was unstoppable. “I’m the first!” he said. The tradition had begun.

Since then, 12 family names and heights were added near-annually to the door’s center panel. When we gathered at Thanksgiving, Christmas or the Fourth of July, Grandpa found his measuring tape and told the kids to line up.  Adults too. He did his entries in ink and pencil, and scribbled a few in haste. Over the years, some became smeared and barely legible.

This vertical timeline was my personal treasure, a visual reminder of how my little grands grew up right before my eyes. Maddie was a year and a half when Grandpa pencilled 2’7” on a June day in 2007. This week the 13-year-old plays the post position on two basketball teams and averages 20 points a game. Our two youngest, Jersey boys Miles and Henry, always punched each other in the arm and laughed uproariously when they saw how much they’d grown since their last entry.

The tallest notation on the door is son-in-law Tim who towers 6’7”. The shortest is our grey-striped cat Molly who stood a foot-and-a-half with all paws on the floor. She’s now buried in the back yard.

We had so many treasures we wanted to give our kids. There’s a rocking chair my mother swore was in President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Parade box. (Mom never let the facts stand in the way of a good story, but I’m convinced she’s correct on this.) We hoped one of them would take the Parsons-style dining room table where we had enjoyed so many lobster dinners and board games.

I was positive my son would leap at this, having recently relocated with his family from a two-bedroom New York City apartment to a three-story home in the New Jersey suburbs. “Uh, Mom, thanks for the offer but we’re not into ‘browns.’” 

Our Florida daughters expressed interest in the baby grand piano where we stood and sang Mr. Wonderful’s “Kennebunk Beach” into the night, but hauling that behemoth 1500 miles south squelched that thought. 

I couldn’t GIVE stuff away! Except for the laundry room door. I wonder where Max will keep it until he’s married and has a home of his own (and hopefully a wife who likes doors covered with ink and pencil markings). Not my problem.

The door now belongs to my six-foot-tall grandson.