On my long drive home, I couldn’t help but realize that there wasn’t even a single picture where that front door wasn’t painted blue. That was the first thing Momma did when she and Pop moved in sixty-three years ago; she painted that ugly wooden door a deep vibrant blue, like the ocean. I couldn’t blame her, that door was the ugliest architectural piece I’d ever seen, anywhere, ever. The corners were warped; the small rounded window towards the top was foggy, and the carvings of vines and flowers were poorly done.
After a family vacation or trip, the first thing we saw was that door, the deep vibrant blue like the ocean. For how much mom and dad hated the door, I don’t know why they never bought a new one, but I guess they were very practical people, if the door did its job there was no need to buy a new one. The blue door stayed and stayed and stayed regardless of the many dings and scrapes through the years. Despite no one liking it, the ugliness of the door became a recurring family joke. It was secretly everyone’s favorite thing about home. All the memories in my mind that are the most vivid include that dang door. I don’t know if it was because it was so ugly or because it was the brightest thing in our lives.
I’ll never forget the day Momma and Pop walked through the ugly blue door with the most beautiful, rosy-cheeked little sister, my little Angelina. Momma had gone to the hospital eleven days ago, eleven I said. I couldn’t miss school and I had dance on the weekends, so I had to wait those eleven days for my baby sister to come home. She was born with her umbilical cord tangled around her hands and she was a little under the newborn weight, so the hospital kept her for a couple of extra days just to make sure she was healthy. Grandma picked me up from my first soccer practice that day and told me where mom and dad were, I squealed with excitement and couldn’t wait to get home. I sat on the couch and stared at the blue door, waiting for it to creak open. I finally heard the car pull into the driveway and I stood up immediately, but I couldn’t just run out there to her, I had to pretend like I wasn’t very excited to not be the only girl anymore. The knob turned and Pop’s head poked through, Grandma giggled and Momma pushed the door the all the way open. There, in the blue tinted light, was my baby sister placed snugly in Momma’s arms. She was bundled in pink blankets, and her tiny pink mittens poked out of the top and her small round face was calm, almost angelic. I looked up at Momma, I had never seen her smile so big, then to Pop and he nodded. I reached out and softly caressed her soft, chubby cheek, she rustled in her blanket and I drew my hand back as fast as I could. I looked at Pop, scared he would yell at me for making the baby cry, but he just smiled. My little sister stretched her tiny pink mittens to the ceiling and opened her rosebud lips into the smallest yawn I’d ever seen. Now I knew why Pop was just smiling, but then, this little pink bundle opened her eyes and then I knew why Momma was smiling so big and why they had named her Angelina. Her bright eyes were so big and they were a deep, vibrant blue like ocean. All four of us; Momma, Pop, Grandma, and I, stood there at the threshold of this angel baby’s new life, the blue door, beaming.
My little sister is my favorite memory with that blue door, and many years later, my Aunt Kate became the worst. Growing up, I absolutely adored my Aunt Kate, she was my favorite person and I was hers. She never wore anything but blue and never knocked on the door when she came over. Despite her love for blue, she hated that door. She always said it reminded her too much of herself, there were so many layers of paint hiding how truly ugly and warped it was, and Momma hid its ugliness well. It was a cool summer morning, we had just finished breakfast. Momma was in the kitchen and Mark, my older brother, Angelina and I went to the front yard to play in the morning air when Aunt Kate showed up, we hadn’t been expecting her that morning. She cracked open the blue door without a knock and let it groan open behind her as she walked to the kitchen. She was wearing a long, blue sun dress, it was a deep, vibrant blue like the ocean and she looked beautiful. Aunt Kate staggered to Momma, who was washing dishes at the sink, and poked her hips; Momma jumped up and squealed. The two sisters embraced each other as always, but Momma immediately pulled away. Aunt Kate began to talk, quickly and desperately, like she was explaining something, but her eyes were expressionless.  Momma’s face contorted into a shape of confusion and anger, she began to yell and cry and push Aunt Kate. Mark, Angelina and I knew better than to go inside now, so we walked to the back of the yard, far enough away to completely silence Momma’s yelling. Of course, I was the one chosen to go inside the house first when the yelling subsided. When I entered into the still open doorway, Aunt Kate turned around and just stared at me with lost eyes. She didn’t look beautiful up close; she hardly looked like Aunt Kate.  She almost ran to the door, but had to use the counter to steady herself along the way and picked me up in a bear hug, cradling my head and sobbing into my shoulder. I looked over Aunt Kate’s shoulder at Momma for an explanation, but she was just staring at the floor. Momma wasn’t angry anymore; her eyes were filled with sorrow. Mark and Angelina had made their way to the house and Aunt Kate did the same with them. When Aunt Kate’s sobs had subsided, Momma began to tell us that Aunt Kate was sick. Before she could finish, Aunt Kate began to yell again, that she wasn’t sick; that she was in a dark, deep cave that she couldn’t get out of. She told us she was sorry, half ways blew a kiss and out the door she went. That was the last time I saw my Aunt Kate, running away in her cobalt dress out that ugly blue door.
It took me many years of wondering before I learned what was wrong with Aunt Kate, and it wasn’t till I was an adult that I learned how truly sick she had been. For sixty-three years that door was painted blue, always a deep vibrant blue like the ocean, painted and repainted. If there was a scrape or chip in the paint one day, the next day Momma was there painting it again. Many people came in and out of that blue door, many, many people. I remember Pop kissing each kid goodbye in the mornings with a skip in his stride, out the door. Each kid waited for him to come home in the evenings to tell us about his day, anxiously watching the door. When Momma got sick in her old age, Aunt Kate came to visit her, but no one else. Kate said she couldn’t bear to see us kids grown up. Momma said that when Kate walked through that blue door, there was a light around her Momma had never seen before, and Aunt Kate spoke to her about her adventures and how happy she was to finally be home. Mark, Angelina, and I grew up and had kids; we liked to tell stories to them about the blue door, maybe even a farfetched one on how it became blue. Both Momma and Pop passed away last year, after cleaning out the house we grew up in; we knew that there was one thing left to do. The three of us spent our last day together stripping that door of its blue paint. Layer by layer by layer, the paint came off. We laughed and cried at all that happened around the door and still talked about how much we loved and hated it at the same time. At last, when every crevice of the carvings were free of blue paint, a deep vibrant blue like the oceans, with tears in our eyes, we closed that ugly wooden door with the foggy window and poorly carved vines, for the last time.