A Home of Mine No More

My parents and their two dogs left before light this morning. They are headed to Florida to what will be their first new home in a series of new homes on the road. I feel. But I’m not sure what. This was my first Christmas morning not in that house in the 34 years that they have owned it. It will be my first New Year’s in many without them. Last year my daughter tried her first solid food of sweet potatoes in the dining room of that house on New Year’s. I have countless memories there. I know they will eventually slip away and I will lose them just as the memories of my first dog that passed 3 years ago, and the next a year after. I remember them. But not very many specific memories unless I see a picture or something reminds me. We are driving to visit my parents about halfway through the 3 months that they will reside there. But this new home is thousands of miles from my house, and not the one that I have grown accustomed to. They cannot come to rescue me in an emergency. They cannot come help me with the baby. I feel alone without them somehow. I know life will never be the same from this point. Is God trying to prepare me to live a life without them as if they are dead? If that is the case, I should be grateful. Parent’s are often taken from our lives without warning. Maybe God is letting me down gently where he was so swift to take others out of my life so many other times before. Because this is what happens when that time comes. The majority of their belongings and my memories have been given, taken, or sold elsewhere scattered into the wind for all I know.

Part of me needs the sentimentality that I’ve always known. It was my security. Part of me wants to be minimal and remember that these things are just material and cannot truly bring me joy. They can’t bring me closer to my parents. They can’t bring me closer to God. I feel sad for my mother and father as they are clearly sentimental people or they wouldn’t have instilled these traits in me. And all of the treasures that they have collected from life around the world and from loved ones gone before them are beginning new stories. Some will get a fresh start and new memories with no recognition of a past life whatsoever. But some will only see their end as they are tossed into the trash as if they never brought purpose to themselves or anyone else. Was their existence meaningless? But it’s too late now. When they return here in 3 months, this will no longer be their home. Someone else will be living in the place that they called home for 34 years with absolutely no knowledge or respect for the life that house has held and the stories in it’s walls. The place that welcomed friends and families, parties and gatherings, loved ones at all hours of the day and night. The place that was once home to all of these items of stories and joy and sentiment now gone. They cannot go back. I can’t go back. Right now my mind is a melting pot of indistinguishable and incomplete memories. There are so many to see that some are getting caught behind or completely wiped out by others. The emotion that I feel from thinking about any single one is so overwhelming that even more come flooding in.

This is how I will lose them. This self-sabotage of fight or flight will rob me of all but 4 years of my life. What will remain? I must write them down before nature strips them from my mind. Before I lose them. Before I lose me. The new inhabitants that will live a literal mile from my garage do not know that house. They don’t know the dog that is buried in the back yard by the trees. Or the bird that resides with him. They won’t ever know about the swimming pool that we fit into that tiny yard. Or how we would have pool parties and then lay out soaking up the sunshine and drying our suits on the steep driveway. They will never hear about all of the time that my sister and I spent on the roof and how we felt invincible crawling the span of the house. Or when she thought it would be funny to lock me out there, so I got scared and broke the window. Everyone may have played the game where the floor is lava in their homes. We definitely did, but our home was a giant that sometimes fell sideways. This new family will never know how this home looked before it had the deck in back, or the porch with the jacuzzi that my father and grandfather built and installed with their bare hands. What about how we had a little “club house” in the crawl space in our attic that we accessed through an Alice in Wonderland sized door. They will only see the doors, there are three of them. They will not ever even hear about the time that my mother and I battled a jumping wolf spider in the basement with a can of hair spray. They won’t know about the countless big, tall trees that used to exist shading parts of the yard but no longer remain because they kept losing huge branches onto the house during many of the severe thunderstorms. These people will never be able to sample the sweet peach flavored ice cream that my grandfather made on the back porch. They’ll never know about the beautiful, tall grandfather clocks that towered the hallways making a constant clicking noise with every tick of time. Or the sleepless nights I had in that house only to find myself irritatingly more awake with every 15 minute chime I could hear when I should have been dreaming.

They might find my parents names listed in records. But these records won’t name my grandparents, or my aunts, uncles, and cousins. It won’t mention the woman that my mother babysat as a girl now grown, who brings her own “pack” over to make memories and share in traditions. Or the family that grew alongside my mother’s brothers that I always assumed were family. Because that is how we treated everyone who came through the doors. They won’t find the names of the kids from church that would drop by unannounced. The ones that often pranked this very house later by garnishing the trees with toilet paper. They will not ever find a single one of those names.

But they might see. They may find a photograph or two.

They might find a picture of the first dog of my own wearing a tutu sitting on the floor in a room that was once blue with pink hand painted clouds on the ceiling, which is now only grey. They might even find a picture of the front yard covered with tables, chairs, a volleyball net, and celebrating people all over it from a graduation party or two. It’s possible. We took so many pictures of memories through the years. And we had so many memories in that house. I may not have removed them all.

But will they be curious? Will they wonder about the extra room? Like the many cold nights and power outages made right by the woodburning fireplace that my dad put on that porch that he built? Will they be as curious as we were about the table found in the crawlspace through the door in the back of my closet in my room? We threw out the marijuana of course. Will they wonder about all that they could do with the room above the garage? Or the room in the basement?

I have memories in every room of this now cold house. They will never know. The house will go on to give them a fresh start as it did for us. And the inhabitants now in three different cities will begin to forget. Is it possible to be an adult, long lived out of my parents home, still feel homesick? I feel sick for a place that I can never again be. No other place will have the same scent as what welcomed me when I walked through that front door every time I entered. All of the emotions I have right now, tied to that house, are tied to my family itself. It is the loss of my childhood, and the loss of everything you have to say goodbye to when you get older. Perhaps the growing pains will never end. They will only change as each milestone comes and leaves. A child of my own growing, possessions passed on, and loved ones being called home, will be constant reminders that sometimes life hurts. And if I don’t let the hurt happen, I will never heal.

With that realization, I suppose I should say goodbye. Goodbye to the rainbow polka dot wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom that we replaced. Goodbye to the cigarette butts I may have hidden under the deck in the backyard. Goodbye to the handprints by the door in my room that are now painted over. Goodbye to the doorways that were used to separate when my sister and I had arguments. Goodbye to the old house with the creaky floors and a loud garage door. They were sounds of surprising comfort. But I don’t have to forget. I will not forget the things, people, and places that made me. Although specific memories slip away, I will not forget that WE made this house a home. I can only pray that this house can bring new, sweet, memories to a family that will respect and cherish not only it, but those that came before them. Life goes on. Because we must.