Movin' On Up

The home's empty rooms inhale memories and exhale potential. Unshackled by the weight of furniture, rugs, framed pictures on the wall, the sparseness is surprisingly liberating.

This is not my childhood home. It is my parents’ place, purchased when I was a young adult.

In 1978, this house checked off all the boxes on my parents’ wish list. This single brick and stone residence with a backyard, a separate two-car garage, a screened-in porch, a den, and 2 full bathrooms actually exceeded their real estate dreams.

They were movin’ on up, just three miles from the compact rowhome where they raised my three siblings and me.

My folks had arrived.

As with every arrival, a departure is imminent. My mom died in 2020, and my dad passed in April of this year. After 47 years, it’s time for someone else to move on up.

The house is being sold.

I find myself switching between the nouns house and home when speaking about it. Saying the word house feels generic and common; saying home adds heart and soul.

Powerful memories reside here, but this house has neither my childhood heart nor soul. I've stored those with the home where I grew up. 

For my folks, however, this home was a cherished vault of family life. They became grandparents the year they moved in. Seeing them realize their American real estate dream left a mark on each of us as we ventured out into our future homes. 

This was the only home their grandchildren and great-grandchildren knew where to find their grandparents. It had generational heft.

Holidays, birthdays, barbecues in the backyard, gatherings with friends, and family Sunday dinners, all hosted here, gave breath to this inanimate structure. 

Life here encircled my parents with a satisfying tempo, similar to the pleasure they felt swaying on their porch glider on any given summer evening. Death eventually stopped the melody as they, each in their nineties, took their last quiet breath.

The Burt Bacharach/Hal David song - A House Is Not a Home - bubbles up as I hear Luther Vandross sing:

                A chair is still a chair even when there’s no one sitting there,                                    But a chair is not a house, and a house is not a home                      When there’s no one to hold you tight. 

While the song explores themes of broken-hearted loneliness, it also conveys a deeper message about the presence of Life within a home. I couldn’t agree more. 

I slept at my parents’ home the two nights before my wedding, as did one of my brothers and his family, who flew in from Maui. My sister lived with my folks for most of her life. My other brother and his family then lived two blocks away. We reveled in this rare time of togetherness and proximity. 

When I worked in Philadelphia, my parents cared for my daughters one day each week, making it my favorite workday. My mom would wait on the front steps with the girls to greet me as I drove up to the house after work. 

I can see that tableau like it was yesterday - the girls' waving wildly at my approaching car. Any lingering work stress disintegrated under the sparkle of those smiles. It is a treasured memory that I grab when I seek extra joy.   

As my folks aged and my family grew, my home became the gathering place for holidays and celebrations. In December, my mom would regularly ask, “Come see my tree.” It wasn't hard for her to relinquish hosting around Christmas, but she disliked the unintended shift in her home's activity.  

Her mother, who lived around the corner from my childhood home, made the same request in the 1970s as she eventually passed the holiday hosting baton to my mom's care. I owe my Christmas hosting devotion to these two unsinkable, loving women.

Singer/songwriter Katie Gavin's lyrics from The Baton echoes:

      Go on girl, it's out of my hands ~ I can't come where you're going ~                 But time unfurls and you'll understand ~ The baton, it will be passed again.

While recently sorting through my mom's holiday decorations, "Come see my tree" whispered in my thoughts - a reminder of her passion for Christmas and her joy in sharing her decorated home. Since my daughters live out of state, I more fully appreciate her feelings.

The décor in my parents’ home eventually began to fray around the edges as they aged into their late eighties and early nineties, but the home's bones were supported and updated. They both knew the value of staying on top of their most valued asset.

 …but a chair is not a house, and a house is not a home…

Once the house was emptied in the Spring, I felt myself inhaling and exhaling deeply. Seeing the newly painted interior and the floors restored to their golden oak splendor reignited what my folks must have seen in the late 1970s. 

Soon (hopefully) the next lucky residents will be welcomed with a renewed, airy freshness as they launch into their own set of memories. 

This house rightly stands on the threshold of becoming a home once more. 

  

"Come see my tree"

Christmas at my parents' home

                                                                 "The Baton"