The Record Collection

I’m sitting in my parents’ basement with my Girl Scout troop of 12 young women. We are in 6th grade, and it’s May 1996. My mom is one of the Girl Scout leaders and the official Cookie Mom.

My father’s vinyl collection surrounds us with this beautiful musty smell. More than 20,000 records adorn the basement, ceiling to floor, and there’s vibrancy down here. The records are alphabetized, and the colors of their spines pop. From The Kinks to Bob Dylan, from Stevie Wonder to The Beatles, from Tom Waits to Janis Joplin. My family has dance parties here, and this has long been a happy place for me. I often challenge my dad to find a certain record in his collection, and he guarantees he can find any album in less than two minutes. But this evening there’s a Girl Scout meeting in the basement, and we’re discussing new badges and thin mints while gossiping about boys and giggling.

Suddenly my dad interrupts the meeting and pulls my mom aside. I can sense this is not a record-finding mission. She comes back upset and crying. We learn that my mother’s father, my Poppa, has just suffered a fatal heart attack. My dad heard the message from my Nana over our answering machine. I’m in complete shock. The basement suddenly feels totally different with my mom utterly devastated.

I spent summers with Nana and Poppa at their home in Saratoga Springs, NY. During these
visits, Poppa tossed me into their pool, taught me how to dive, and we played gin rummy at night
in their living room. Andes Chocolate Mints and Werther’s Original Candies adorned the crystal
dish on the coffee table, and we often laughed uncontrollably about nothing in particular. What is
my Nana going to do? I have a hard time picturing what her home will feel like now.

Just three weeks after Poppa’s funeral, another call comes. My best girlfriend, Ashley, another
Girl Scout, has just returned home with her mom after a weekend away. Ashley’s mother leaves
a distraught message on my parents’ answering machine, just as Nana had done. Ashley’s dad
was found on the floor not breathing, a bottle by his side. At Poppa’s funeral, Ashley had told me
how Poppa was like a father figure to her. Now her real father is gone, too.

When I get to Ashley’s home, she is bawling uncontrollably. Her father is still there, motionless,
in the tidy living room where Ashley and I spent so much time practicing cheerleading moves,
doing homework, or just watching TV. As an 11-year-old, I feel helpless and panicky. Am I
supposed to witness this much sadness and death at this age? When, if ever, will these childhood
homes be a source of happy memories again?

Twenty-six years later, I visit my parents often, and I still challenge my dad to find records in the
basement. I give him two minutes, and we smile.