Off Key

I have come to appreciate keyless entry, at least as a backup. Even if you don’t have the key, you can still open the door. You just have to know the password.

Last week I was approached by someone looking for a key to a door I haven’t opened in a long time.  As the door did not have keyless entry and no other keys could be found, I went through my known collection of keys conveniently located in two separate drawers nine miles apart, trying to find it.

I did not find the key they needed, but I did find a key to a truck I no longer own, a house I have not lived at in twenty years, a key to my parent’s house (which was sold many years ago), keys to paddle locks (some with the paddles, some not), many keys that will forever remain a mystery but cannot be discarded (just in case) and skeleton keys to reveal the contents of a closet or to simply wind a clock.

The skeleton keys, which still work on some of the interior doors in our old house, remind me of the keys used for an older style of roller skates. When I was at the Catholic grade school, kids were allowed to skate in the church basement after school or on Saturdays. There was a generous supply of skates, and by using the key, the skates could be adjusted to fit over almost any child’s shoe.  

I can still hear the sounds of the metal wheels being rolled round and round the basement. The kids were unsupervised and the church was unlocked. It’s wasn’t that long ago when locks were considered optional.

When we bought our house twenty years ago the owner had keys made for the exterior door locks; he had long since lost the original keys because he never locked the house – even when he went on vacation. We lock the house now, and I’m pretty sure I have the keys, and I ‘m pretty sure so do some of the neighbors.

Our neighbors have a copy of our house key so they can water our plants and watch our TV when we’re on vacation.  Plus, it’s good to know a spare is just around the corner if you lock yourself out, something my parents had never learned.

As the kids aged most of us had our turn crawling through the bathroom window to unlock the front door for the rest of the family. I can remember being lifted through the window by my father; I can also remember being scolded by my father because I took a moment to use the bathroom before I unlocked the front door.

You give your neighbors keys to your house, and you give your family and friends the keys to your heart. The latter ones are harder to replace if lost or abused. The more I use these keys in front of me to find the right word the more I realize that happiness cannot be opened with a key or secured with a lock, because it’s not found behind a door or in a box. You just have to know the password: love.

I believe that the key to happiness in life is love, and as Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved."