SOLD - Saying Goodbye to the House You Grew Up In

If you are middle aged, chances are you have already experienced saying goodbye to the house you grew up in.

Often as in the case of my family, one parent passes away and the other (after 50 years) decides to downsize, move to an apartment and leave the ghosts behind.

But you never really leave those ghosts behind because the house you grew up in will always be the house you grew up in.

The walls have memories. The shadows that have been casted upon them remain although they change shape over time.

Ask anyone which rooms hold the most memories and they will probably say “my bedroom and the kitchen.”

Your bedroom kept your secrets, the dreams of your first crush, first kiss, the private telephone conversations that lasted for hours, the homework left stale because you decided watching TV or staring out the window in oblivion, was a better use of your time, the sleepovers, the first boyfriend/girlfriend who shared your bed, skin to skin, a feeling like no other.

Your kitchen was a storyteller. It bared witness to your first meal, to birthday candles that multiplied as the years passed by, the relatives - Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, all of whom occupied chairs that eventually became empty, the celebratory meals, the milk and cookies, the place where you sat with your siblings and parents sharing stories of the day, debating, laughing, crying and the phone call that came in the middle of the night, the events of which changed your life in one single second.

If you listen carefully, you can hear dog tags jiggling somewhere in the distance as you remember the adored canines who ran up and down the hall, every time you returned home, as if they had not seen you in years. They were so happy and appreciative of the love that surrounded them that they gave it back one hundred times more. Their spirit, their being, still very much alive in the air, in the layers of emotions that flood your mind. 

                 Two Incredibly Beautiful Souls Who Passed Through This Door - My Dad & Casey

Eventually the house is emptied and you take that final walk around, in and out of every room and each one carries the voices, the images and a huge part of your life story.

Your mind takes snapshots that will transform into black and white filmstrips of all that you want to remember and choose to forget and of every emotion ever captured within the confines of that house.

Your sole living parent begins their next chapter and once you close that door; yours begins as well.

It’s strange to think that another family will be living in your house. Some kid will be sleeping in your bedroom and looking out your window and dreaming their dreams.

The parents will stay up late at night trying to navigate one worry at a time.

The new family will also experience magical moments in the kitchen, with food and family and hopes for the future. There will be birthdays and holidays and friends warmly welcomed and fed. There will be a cat or a dog that loves their family and their home and is given a true sense of belonging.

If there was a slide show of everyone who ever came and went through that front door, it would be like a train moving through a tunnel into the dark, into the light, all of its passengers looking out the windows having no idea of what is ahead - only what they left behind.

5730 - Thanks for the memories.