One afternoon last week I was returning home from doing a show at The Peak in White Plains (www.1071thepeak.com) when I found 2 strangers standing in my driveway, a third stranger taking pictures of my house and a fourth standing around in the street.

I opened the driver’s side window and informed them that if they didn’t move I would be running them over.

“She used to live here!” said the fourth standing around stranger.

I pulled in and parked and jumped out of the car.

“Okay…who used to live here?” I asked.

“She did.” Fourth stranger pointed at a small older woman…one of the two people who had been standing in my driveway. “And today is her 90^th birthday!”

I looked at this small, older woman who didn’t look 90, and hugged her. I asked her name.

“Marcia. I lived here when I was a little girl.”

Introductions were made all around. With Marcia were her son and daughter-in-law who came down from Maine to celebrate Marcia’s landmark birthday and her nephew who lives in Woodbridge. Marcia lives in New Haven now and explained that she “doesn’t drive anymore” which I was happy to hear.

“Would you like to come inside?” I asked. “The house is a mess. If I’d known you were coming…”

Of course they all said they didn’t want to impose but I knew Marcia very much wanted to see the house. And, besides, it was no imposition at all; I was fascinated by the whole turn of events and wanted to hear what the house looked like when Marcia lived there.

The nephew left but Marcia, her son and daughter-in-law came inside. I asked Marcia if she had any photographs of the house from when she had lived in it. Since our house was built in 1930 as a beach house, she would have been in her early teens when she lived in it. She said she thought she had a few and her daughter-in-law said she would try to scan them and send them to me.

Marcia moved around the living room area and pointed out where there was once a window and how there used to be a partition “with that criss-cross stuff on the top.”

“Lattice work?” offered her son.

“Yes! That’s it. Lattice, “ said Marcia.

She told us how the house was two stories then (it is three now) and how the sole bathroom was on the first floor off the kitchen area. There was no back deck.

“And of course these hardwood floors weren’t here.”

“Would you like to see the second floor?” I asked her. Again she said she didn’t want to impose and I assured her this was as much of a treat for me as it was for her. I loved hearing about what my house was like before I was even born.

I led the way to the second floor that was also considerably different from when Marcia was living there. For one thing, there was no bathroom on the second floor, just three small bedrooms, one of which was a “summer porch” as Marcia put it. It is the room in the front of our house that, to this day, is not heated and so it is used for storage; a polite way to say it holds all our crap. When Marcia was a kid living there, that room was screened in and the kids liked to sleep there on warm summer nights.

Although I invited everyone to see the third floor Marcia decided it would be too much of a trip. She was happy to have seen the space that had been her home some 75 years ago.

“Your house is very cozy,” Marcia said. She wanted to know if we liked living in it.

“We love it and we are taking good care of it,” I told her.

She seemed pleased by what she had seen. We all exchanged our contact information (“M-A-R-C-I-A” she spelled out her first name for me. “I was going to ask if it was Marcia with a CIA or an SHA,” I said. “Thank you,” said Marcia.). She told us that she wants us to come and visit her.

And then they were gone.

If I had not come home at the same time that she and her family were outside my house I likely never would have met Marcia. I am certain they wouldn’t have knocked on our door. It was meant for me to meet Marcia on her 90^th birthday. It wasn’t my birthday but I sure felt like I got a gift.

Related posts:

1. On The Street Where You Lived
2. The Night Before Christmas