My mom is selling the house I grew up in. It is a good thing really...The house is old; it needs remodeled again and of course my mom needs to move forward. A house full of 35 years worth of memories has got to be hard to live in now, without my dad. But that it is really happening has been a hard pill for me to swallow this summer. And it is happening...the yard sale is over, the furniture is in storage, the new condo has been purchased. My mom should be all settled in her new place before I even return to work from maternity leave.
I haven't been there much since my mom started packing things up. I always thought I would be helping with a task so huge, but having a newborn has made that impossible. It is probably a good thing actually, because I don't think I could've done it. The few times I have been over since the furniture was moved out have been hard. I am the kind of person who holds tight to objects with some sort of memory connected to them. I found a ratty old poster, a topographic map of the Pacific Northwest, sitting by the stairs when I went over last week. I'd completely forgotten about it until I saw it. The poster hung in my dorm room freshman year of college. I have always loved maps and I was really proud of it...I think I actually bought it at a map specialty store in high school on one of our visits to Tacoma, Wa. My dad and I took it to Long's Bookstore and he got it matted and attached to foam core for me. It's a small memory which is probably why I completely forgot about all of it: the poster, that it hung in my dorm room, the connection to my dad...all of it, until I saw it in a pile of random stuff ready to be tossed out or moved. It got me wondering...what else have I completely forgotten about?
To me, that is what makes it so hard to see my childhood home emptied out. I am afraid of what I'll forget.
When I was 12 or 13 my dad took me by his childhood home. My dad grew up here in Columbus, but I'd never seen the house before then. It was a half double and I don't think his father ever even owned the place. We didn't go inside, we just drove by because it wasn't in the best neighborhood anymore, even back then. It was probably a Saturday afternoon and it was just the two of us. We had gone down to the old Schottensteins store in the south end of Columbus (which isn't there any longer) and for some reason my dad decided to take me by his old house. I don't remember much else about that day. I don't remember what we talked about, I just remember finding it so fascinating, even at that young age, to see the house where my dad grew up and I have never forgotten it. I don't think he had seen the house in many years either and I wonder what prompted him to take me by it on that particular afternoon.
About 5 years ago I decided to drive by the house again. I loosely remembered where it was, right off Main St by the old Rosary Catholic Church and School. The house was abandoned and boarded up and the street was really depressed, but I still felt transfixed by it and tried to imagine a different neighborhood. I tried to picture my dad living in the house as a child, wondering what he was like back then. He never did talk much about being a kid and there are few photographs of him as a child, so picturing him as one has always been tough on my imagination.
I have no doubt I will take Eliza by my childhood home someday. I will tell her she was inside it when she was just an itty bitty baby. When we do visit, I will very likely be so bold as to even knock on the door and ask for a tour too. Although it saddens me she won't know the house or get to spend the night in it, deep down I know the stories I tell her will still help create something for her, just like when my dad took me by his old house. I also know that without us, without my mom and my dad, my brother and I, it is already a different house. Where it really exists is in our memories. No one really needs to live there to keep that alive. I still can't help but worry that there are more memories trapped inside the french doors, or the built in book cases, or my old bedroom, but I guess I'll have to take what I can get. Those lost memories will just have to haunt the place!
6 comments:
this was really touching Amanda. Your day with your dad reminds me of a day my grandpa (now passed) took me around to a couple of his childhood homes and schools in cincinnati. Special day. My parents sold our house about 5-6 years back :( hope you have some pictures. xx
Thanks Cheryl, I've been wanting to get over there with Eliza to snap some pics of her at the house...originally I wanted to put pics on the blog too, but I just didn't make it over there in time...and since this post even, the house is now completely emptied and sold (!!!), but I have til September to make it over for some new pictures...
And I've been looking through a lot of childhood pics too...but the house is mostly in the background...I'd like to try and get some pictures where the house is the focus.
Touching. I am tearing up just thinking about how this must feel for you and your mother. I can hardly dream of how it will feel if and when I have to do this with my parent's house. Take as many memories as you can Amanda, stuff your pockets full!
Amanda,
This is beautifully written and so bittersweet. No doubt, your mom may feel a weight lifted off her shoulders, but also feel this new loss.
It seems the best thing to do is what you are doing: reminisce, jot down memories, look at old photographs. I'm very much like you in becoming attached to objects that seem to perfectly capture a specific memory. I can't imagine my parents moving from my childhood home, nor my grandparents moving from their home. When we were kids, sometimes on Sunday mornings after church my parents would take us through the drive-thru of the Clintonville McDonald's for cheese danishes and then they'd take us by the 1/2 double that was my dad's "bachelor apartment" and then their first home together. We loved doing that--trying to picture them young, living there, listening stories about their dog Dusty, and the time my uncle rode his bike down to visit one day when he was only about 10 years old.
And, so it's smart that you're reminding yourself that you'll have that tradition to start with Eliza someday. You also have the focus now of making YOUR home a special and memory-filled place for her to grow up in. Hopefully, that will ease some of the sadness you feel.
Hugs!
Katie--How sweet that your parents would take you on a little tour of their younger days. You know I often do this with David when we drive by the street where he lived when we first started dating. And we'll reminisce about when we barely knew each other and were so young! I can totally see us doing a driving tour of our relationship someday!
And thanks for the reminder to make our home, "home." I think that will be a healing thing to keep in mind when I ever miss my old home...
I totally get this too. Even though my parents still live in the house I grew up in, sometimes I think about how so much of our life is a blur. When I think about my life so far, and everything that's happened or I've done or seen, so much of it does slip through...I can only guess it has to be that way so we can live in the present.
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