My sister called today. My mom is looking at houses. You know, to move. Potentially.
I am surprised.
The house has, as I have recently learned, actually been in the family for longer than I have. I’d known that my grandparents — my dad’s parents — had moved into the house when I was born. What I didn’t know is that my uncle — my dad’s brother — had been living there for a short while before.
We moved in when I was five. It is still the place I come back to. Even after living away from it for the better part of thirteen years, it is still the place I think of as home.
I am surprised she is thinking of leaving, but I shouldn’t be.
Mom never really liked the house as a house. And to be fair, a lot about the layout is awkward. It’s a funny kind of split level, so that the bedroom hallway is visible from the living room, including the front door and the large picture window. The high ceiling in the living room is impossible to clean. (Ask me how I know.) The downstairs family room is always fifteen or twenty degrees colder than the rest of the house. It’s difficult to heat, difficult to cool, difficult to maintain privacy.
She has, for a long time, wanted a house that is all on one level. As an elementary age child, back when she had her full mobility, I heard her say it with some regularity. But now, stairs hurt in themselves; plus they make it difficult to effectively use mobility aids. What had been a past preference is working its way to a present need. In a single story house, she wouldn’t have the pain and balance issues that come (for her) with stairs — and it would start to make a lot more sense to use her walker around the house.
And if I’m being perfectly honest, I have to wonder if some of her dislike is or was rooted in the fact that the house had belonged to my grandmother — her mother-in-law — before we lived there. I mean, there was never any palpable hostility between them, but they were never close. I could quite easily imagine my grandmother nitpicking at all the things that she had done differently when it was her house — and the things she would do differently if it were sill hers. I can also easily imagine my mom being rubbed wrong by a comment — from my grandma or another family member — where no judgment was implied.
But I can see where the house might come with a lot of baggage for my mom, where she may have never been fully able to think of it as hers — as her home.
I do not think it is complete coincidence that my mom’s rather sudden enthusiasm for house hunting came shortly after my grandmother’s death and brother’s departure. There is no one left for whom the house has so much attachment, no one who would secretly or not so secretly want Mom to prioritize keeping that house over her safety or comfort.
When all is said and done, I want my mom to do as she chooses. She is the one who will live there — wherever “there” happens to be — every day.
And yet.
I also want this moment of personal grieving.
For the Christmas trees that stood tall and beautiful under that impossible-to-clean ceiling.
For the slides down the bannister, landing on my feet — usually — at the bottom of the stairs.
For the cool, quiet escapes to the family room, whether because it was 90 degrees outside or because I just needed to hide.
For the remembered conversations between my parents — loving, animated, clever, witty, respectful — that drifted up from the family room to my bedroom as I fell asleep.
For the most content memories I have of my mother and father together.
For the place that always will be my home.
[Not my house -- By Andrew Jameson (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons]