You Can Never Go Back Home

There is an old saying that you can never go back home...and I think that whoever said that was right. I was with my daughter and her fiancee, who had an appointment with the priest at St. Patrick's Church, in Cleveland, Ohio. This is the Church where they will be married. It is also my old parish where I grew up. I went to St. Patrick's while I attended grade school, high school, college, and where I got married.

The Church, St. Patrick's on Bridge Avenue, used to be an Irish parish at the time that I attended it. I was one of the token outsiders. I am 100% Italian. But my pastor inserted O' in front of my last name (O'Aiello), and I belonged. I was one of them.

We parked behind the Church and my daughter asked, "Is there a school here?"

"No, not anymore," I replied. I looked around trying to figure out where the school used to stand. There is a rectangular area behind the Church. It looked too small to ever have a school building fit there. The school had four stories, a basement with a cafeteria, two floors of classrooms (two classrooms for each grade), and the fourth floor was the gym where we had phys ed., played basketball, and where Father Bork taught us square dancing, right down to a few do-sa-dos.

The school is gone. The priest house still appears to look in good condition, and the convent has a total make over and probably is now privately owned. There is a Catholic Club that looks the same, and I am surprise that it is still standing. The Church is beautiful - old and faded right down to the front doors, which are still the same shade of green. The neighborhood surrounding the Church has changed. It is a melting pot of different nationalities.

While my daughter and her fiancee talked with the priest, I opted to wait across the street at the library. It is beautiful old building. Architecturally it is gorgeous. It is the same library in the round that I used to go to every week, take out ten books, and read them. The only thing missing are prickly bushes that used to surround the building. The inside looks the same, except for some additional bookcases that have been added, and a policeman with a gun, who sits across from the desk where you check out books.

I felt like a fish out of water, a displaced person in a place that I used to call home. It was a place where I once felt comfortable and at home. My conflicting emotions began when I stepped out of the car and onto the ground of my old life, until I got back into the car and drove away.

No matter how long or how much time has lapsed, I can never go back home. I fully understood that now. I can never go back. I can revisit the area where I grew up but for me home is truly gone and only a memory.