A rite of passage
I'm going to Nebraska this weekend to help my mother clean out her house so she can move into a condo that will be much more comfortable for her. This house also happens to be the house where I grew up.
I'm not sure just how much I really want to delve into the ramifications of "no longer having a home" in such a public forum. Actually, I don't really want to at all. This space is for my own mental onanism, so I suppose I can say or not say whatever I feel like. I will say that the concept of "home" has always been one of great import to me. When I was a little kid, I would cry inconsolably at the thought that Dorothy might never get home again to Kansas. Even though I'd seen the movie before and I knew she would, the idea that she would be forever denied the possibility of seeing her home again was just too terrible for me to bear. I'll start crying during the trailer for "E.T." because all he wants to do is go home—even though I know he makes it. Not exactly the manliest behavior, I know.
I grew up in that house, and watched my father die in that house. I can show you where he used to pick up baby rabbits for me (until one peed on his hand, which put an end to the rabbit shows). I can show you where we drew our initials on the cement slab in the back yard. There's a great place in the back hallway where you can crouch behind a cupboard and scare the crap out of anyone walking toward the bedrooms. If you are in the front bathroom, remember that anyone in the back bathroom can hear you through the heat register, so try to do whatever you're doing quietly. I can show you the small basement storage room where I nearly passed out from paint fumes while building models. I can tell you how the living room used to be a breezeway, and that there was a six-foot square hole in the roof for a twenty-foot-tall pine tree to stick through. I can also tell you how my parents used to host lobster parties in that breezeway, and how much fun I had watching our schnauzer cautiously get to know the main course before it went into the pot. I can show you the stone in the hearth that looks like Nebraska. I can show you the doorknob where we've hung a Christmas ornament my mom made for me when she was a kindergarten room mother. I can show you the whiskey barrel planter where we would bury my sister's neon tetras when they invariably died.
Many of these things will still be there once the house is sold. But I will never get to see them again, because it won't be my house any more. I am really bad with the concept of "forever." For example, I will see something on TV and think "I should call Dad and tell him to check this out." But then I realize that I can't do that. He's been dead for ten years now. Yet the urge to call him has never faded. He's gone, and will be forever. My rational brain knows that, but it usually places a distant second to my emotional brain. How does this relate to the house? He always said he would only leave that house feet first. Well, he did.
Knowing that someone else will be living in "my" house as of April 15 is a concept that will take some getting used to.
I feel a little foolish now. I may take this post down tomorrow.
I'm not sure just how much I really want to delve into the ramifications of "no longer having a home" in such a public forum. Actually, I don't really want to at all. This space is for my own mental onanism, so I suppose I can say or not say whatever I feel like. I will say that the concept of "home" has always been one of great import to me. When I was a little kid, I would cry inconsolably at the thought that Dorothy might never get home again to Kansas. Even though I'd seen the movie before and I knew she would, the idea that she would be forever denied the possibility of seeing her home again was just too terrible for me to bear. I'll start crying during the trailer for "E.T." because all he wants to do is go home—even though I know he makes it. Not exactly the manliest behavior, I know.
I grew up in that house, and watched my father die in that house. I can show you where he used to pick up baby rabbits for me (until one peed on his hand, which put an end to the rabbit shows). I can show you where we drew our initials on the cement slab in the back yard. There's a great place in the back hallway where you can crouch behind a cupboard and scare the crap out of anyone walking toward the bedrooms. If you are in the front bathroom, remember that anyone in the back bathroom can hear you through the heat register, so try to do whatever you're doing quietly. I can show you the small basement storage room where I nearly passed out from paint fumes while building models. I can tell you how the living room used to be a breezeway, and that there was a six-foot square hole in the roof for a twenty-foot-tall pine tree to stick through. I can also tell you how my parents used to host lobster parties in that breezeway, and how much fun I had watching our schnauzer cautiously get to know the main course before it went into the pot. I can show you the stone in the hearth that looks like Nebraska. I can show you the doorknob where we've hung a Christmas ornament my mom made for me when she was a kindergarten room mother. I can show you the whiskey barrel planter where we would bury my sister's neon tetras when they invariably died.
Many of these things will still be there once the house is sold. But I will never get to see them again, because it won't be my house any more. I am really bad with the concept of "forever." For example, I will see something on TV and think "I should call Dad and tell him to check this out." But then I realize that I can't do that. He's been dead for ten years now. Yet the urge to call him has never faded. He's gone, and will be forever. My rational brain knows that, but it usually places a distant second to my emotional brain. How does this relate to the house? He always said he would only leave that house feet first. Well, he did.
Knowing that someone else will be living in "my" house as of April 15 is a concept that will take some getting used to.
I feel a little foolish now. I may take this post down tomorrow.
posted by Sasquatch at
9:51 PM
8 Comments:
catharsis... impo, you shouldn't feel foolish (at all). at some point, we "all" go through this pang/form of "homelessness". you were lucky (nay, blessed) to have had the one home thru life, although it makes it hella-harder now to accept its loss. don't undermind your feelings for it (posted or not) because they're valid (and rational). besides, they're not just about the house proper. just know "we" understand where you stand...
By
Anonymous, at 3/08/2006 1:41 PM
Sasquatch, this was a very moving and touching entry. I hope you don't take it down. I think there are many people, especially at this stage in life, who are losing parents and childhood homes, and it's good to see that they are not alone in how it feels.
Your post has reminded me. My father will have been gone 20 years on your birthday this year. That's almost as long as you and I have known each other. I rarely think of him, and part of me feels very bad about that. I am envious, and yet not, of the fondness and sadness you have over your dad.
He would be very proud of the man you are today.
By
Merujo, at 3/08/2006 1:51 PM
This is a well written post about something that resonates for me.
By
kob, at 3/08/2006 9:54 PM
Don't feel foolish and don't take this down. I have a similar dilemma in life in that I can't point to any of the "homes" I've lived in since moving from my childhood home in Utah as "home." Home is more than just where you hang your hat. Home is where Mom taught you how to bake cookies. Home is where the cherry tree provided hours of recreation and yummy fruit. Home is where you played frisbee under the street lights with your best friend until 10:00 on a summer's night. Home is where your Dad read Ogden Nash and the Bible to you. Home is where your heart felt safest and where it remains.
By
Janet Kincaid, at 3/09/2006 8:47 AM
This was wonderful and touching! The description of the nooks and crannies that only you would know brought a smile to my face. I hope based on the comments you've been receiving you don't take this down.
I too am in a similar situation. My parent's have yet to put the "For Sale" sign, but talks about selling seem to be becoming more frequent. Every time I go home for a visit I'm asked to go through more of my stuff and pack up or get rid of as much as possible. The whole idea of not having this "home" to go back to is heart breaking. I'm practically in denial and try not thinking or talking about it. I don't want to know what it will be like when the house is actually sold.
Granted it is just a house: four walls and a roof. But it's the house that became my home, that I grew up in, that has been the core of most of my childhood memories. We just have to be thankfully that the memories aren't sold away from us along with the house.
By
ikins, at 3/09/2006 1:08 PM
In 1999 my father died. In 2000 my mother died. "My home" sold in 2002. It was the house I'd live in from age 5 until I moved to California at the age of 24. Even though I'm in my 40's now, I felt like a homeless orphan. I'm glad you left the post up long enough for me to read it. It's hard, it's grown-up stuff and, at least for me, I have times when I don't feel like a grown-up.
I found you through Merujo's blog.
By
Loracs, at 3/12/2006 5:05 PM
I'm glad you left this up too. We lived in some different houses when I was growing up, but the house I lived in from 4-13 is the one I miss. I wish we had more photos of its insides. I wasn't yet the avid photographer I am now.
It reminds me of Howard's End. The film just kills me because I understand so well how one can be attached to a certain house.
By
Claire, at 3/13/2006 12:55 AM
I'm glad you left the post up. I hated the town where I grew up and was glad when I moved away. So it shocked the hell out of me when the last night we were helping my folks pack up I burst into a sobbing fit.
And my grandfather has been gone for five years and I still think of questions I need to get his answer for. And, you're right, it is a crash back to reality when I realize that I can't get an answer from him anymore -- and that it's been so long.
By
Anonymous, at 3/13/2006 10:39 PM
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