Building the Outhouse (REVISED)

Building The Outhouse


I am almost 47 years old and still the baby of the family. I realize now how right my family was when they told me I would always be the baby. Right now I feel like a lost child.

It’s been almost ten months since my dad died suddenly of a heart attack. The guilt and the grief are still devastating.
Guilt because even though I couldn’t have done anything for him I still feel like I should have been there. Maybe somehow I could have seen it coming.

As much as I would like to have him back, I am thankful that he no longer suffers the pain he dealt with all his life. And even more thankful that when the time of his death arrived, he was exactly where he wanted to be. In the home he built just a few hundred yards away from where his mother brought him into the world.

Long before he built the house he would retire to, he built a one room cabin that sat close to the private road that bore our family's last name. At that time there was no running water down there in the middle of the woods. Therefore the closest bathroom was about five miles away at my granny's house.

I have many wonderful memories of my dad. One in particular stands out. It is helping him build an outhouse.

It was a hot, humid east Texas day. The whole family was busy putting the finishing touches on the cabin. I noticed my dad collecting and stacking scrap lumber out behind the cabin.

Curious I head in his direction. “Daddy what are you doing?”
He grins through the sweat pouring down his face. “I’m gonna build an outhouse.”
I am a young woman in my twenties and have never known anything but indoor plumbing. I am repulsed by the idea of an outhouse. “But why?”

He jerks his thumb back toward the cabin and says, “Cause I’m tired of you womenfolk complaining about having to go in the woods.” Then he laughs at the look on my face. I grin back.

He hands me a hammer and some nails. “Here you can help me.” At my look of mortification he laughs. “Come on sugarplum, I’ll bet your knowledge of building an outhouse will be valuable to you later in life.”

Surprisingly, I find it easy to build an outhouse and before long it’s almost finished. My dad disappears into the shed, then comes back out again carrying not one, but two toilet seats. I am puzzled. “Why do you have two toilet seats?”

He laughs as he begins to screw the seats into place. “Because when I was growing up if you had a two seater outhouse you were considered rich. Besides I don’t want you women to have to wait in line out here.” This time I'm the one who laughs.

Years later after my parents built their retirement home my dad said he was going to tear the outhouse down, but I begged him not to. So he removed the toilet seats and hauled the outhouse behind the shed. He found that it was a good place to store his rakes and shovels.

My dad is gone now and I feel the pain of that loss every day of my life. But when I go “home” to visit, the outhouse and the memories are there. And I can smile through the pain.