Chapters

A house is a container.  It holds us.  Walls.  Ceiling.  Floor.  It is a quiet witness to the changes of our lives.  It is a storage space for memory.  It remembers things that we want to hold onto and things that we would like to forget.  What happens when we leave a house?

Yesterday I looked at a home where a man in his 80's lived alone.  It was the home that he raised his children in.  It was the home where he lost his wife four years ago.  As he showed me the rooms and introduced me to the appliances it was impossible for him not to mention the past.  "This is the desk where my daughter did her homework.  She would sit here and ask me to come and help her with problems.  She hid treasures in this small corner of the desk.  I wasn't allowed to look there."  "I haven't used this dishwasher.  My wife loved doing dishes.  She wouldn't let me do them.  She like to look out the window and wash."  "We never used the dryer either.  She liked hanging the clothes on the line.  She liked the smell and the feel of them better."  "My children used to play in this basement when they were small.  They would run around and make messes and we didn't care.  We moved in when our kids were just babies."
Now we come to his home with our little ones running about with hopes of settling down for a while and watching them grow.  He is at another phase in the journey.

People are looking at our home as well.  It is funny.  The people who are most interested in our house are mirrors of what we once were.  They are about to get married or just have gotten married.  They are asking questions about lead paint and families in the area and neighbors.  They are ready to start the first chapter of raising a family and we are closing the door on that infant stage of family life.  I am aware of just how fast it goes.  Somehow the forced ending of a chapter, the intentional move to change ones situation forces me to reflect and to let go.  I stood in the shower this morning and sobbed as I remembered my first shower in this house.  I remember looking down at my pregnant body aware of how life was about spring forth and that change was imminent.  I won't be pregnant again.  That story will be sealed in this home.  Those memories were made inside these walls.  The birthday parties, nights we were up with crying babies, Christmas gatherings.  This seven year chapter is about to end and I cannot stop crying.