When Jane Austen created Sense & Sensibility’s Marianne Dashwood, she gave us a character of over-the-top emotion, a real Regency-era drama queen. But, I have to admit that I can empathize with Marianne. I’ve always been a sentimental sap.
When I was a young girl, I could turn practically anything – unusual rocks, a Home-Ec handmade pillow, concert ticket stubs, a favorite nightgown - into treasures that I became very attached to. I had hoards stashes of special things that I kept, just because. Even now, I hang on to most pictures and notes I get from the kids (please don’t ask how I organize all this stuff). And of course, my wedding dress is boxed up and preserved, just in case.
In spite of inevitable change in families and situations over time, I’ve had a remarkable amount of consistency in my life. Mom and Dad have been married for 52 years, Mick and I have had the same address for our entire marriage and he’s worked at the same place for 28 years. Our vacations have been pretty consistent: we’ve gone to Virginia Beach many times, twice in the same vacation house. Even our dogs have been the same breed: labs – all 5 of them! (OK, the last two have some Great Pyr thrown in.) Some might call this type of living boring or stale (trust me, things aren’t boring around here), but I call it comfortable.
So, for people like Marianne and me, changes that involve letting go can be particularly hard. That’s why July 2015 will be remembered as a time of monumental change and letting go for me: 3 homes that have been very significant in our lives are leaving the family.
Pawsie’s House
I never met my father-in-law, Philip Worley; he died in 1981, five years before Mick and I met. Philip lived a lifetime of hard work, from the family farm, to a large factory and finally, as the founder and owner of a welding shop in their small town. The business did well enough that in 1980, he was able to begin building a very unique underground house he’d designed. The family called it “Pawsie’s House.” It was about halfway finished when he got the dreaded diagnosis of cancer. During his treatment and even after his death, Mick’s oldest brother Bob continued working on the house and eventually finished it. Over time, it became the gathering place for the Worley get-togethers. The house had this enticing spiral staircase that was irresistible to all our crawling toddlers; I’m sure Mick and I pulled each of them off of it several times during visits. Outside was a beautiful fountain that lit up at night, an endless yard and a dangerously steep hill for rolling down. After my mother-in-law died last year, the hard decision was made to put Pawsie’s House on the market. Finally, just this month, it has two potential buyers. Last Saturday, an offer was accepted.
The Home Place
During all of my growing up years, my grandparents lived in a house at 2002 N. Audubon built by my maternal great-great grandpa in the early 1900s. It seems like the house has always just been there, long before there was anything else in the area. It stands in the background of so many family pictures, a constant character in our family story of births and deaths, ordinary days and special days, war time and peace. Generations of our family made it their home, so it’s known as “The Home Place” to many aunts, uncles and cousins. To me, it was simply Grandma and Grandpa’s house: a deeply comforting place of wood-paneled walls and creaky floors, of strong-smelling coffee and sweet pipe tobacco, of Grandpa’s deep voice, Grandma’s lively ragtime on the piano and a ticking mantle clock in the dining room that chimed every quarter hour.
When I was in my twenties, my grandparents divorced and things changed. Grandma moved into the house across the street that Great-Grandma had lived in, while Grandpa stayed in the Home Place. Things weren’t the same, of course, but I took comfort in the fact that the house was still in the family; it was still ours. Through the years, the house was passed down through two more generations.
And then, more change.
An unexpected death, a move to a different state, life changes, goal changes. And now, The Home Place is changing hands – this time, out of the family. The house was fundamentally changed for me with my grandparents’ divorce, but this is permanent; a definite good-bye to a dear link to generations and times gone.
Years ago, when life in and around The Home Place began changing, and Grandpa finally had to move to an Alzheimer’s unit, Mom and I talked about homes and why they mean so much to us. I was struggling with the changes and worried about the future of my grandparents’ home, which had meant so much to me. Mom summed it up well, “It’s not the house itself, but the people living in the house that make it a home. Once the people are gone, it’s just a house.” Later, I was able to see and understand that truth very clearly in our very own house.
In 2006, we moved out for a few months to have our house renovated. While the work was being done, we rented a house about half a mile down the road. I remember driving by slowly at night and looking at our house. It was such a strange thing to see: that home of 13 years we knew and loved so well was dark and silent, empty and even exposed to the night sky at one end (it was a major renovation :-) ). For the first time, I didn’t want to be in our house, I wanted to be in that glowing one up the road, where the people I loved laughed and cried and lived.
8383 South Dix Road
Unlike the other special homes in my life, this one was never named. It was merely “Home.” Mom and Dad had it built in 1977 – their dream home out in the country. It had the smallest lot on the road, but it was a good, big house with a full basement and lots of outside places to wander. All six of us kids were born by the time we moved to Dix Road, but the home saw us growing up and graduating, marrying and bringing back grandkids by the dozens. The garage was converted to a living room, porches were expanded and living spaces extended out into the yard. There was always room for all of us … and more!
In the last year or two, God has made it clear to Mom and Dad that the time has come for them to move on, to make a new house their home. Yes, of course there is some sadness: we’re leaving this home full of memories from the past incredibly-full 38 years. We will miss the farm next door, with horses in the fields and kittens in the hayloft, the railroad tracks across the road, with its occasional train that brought everybody running and waving. The sledding hill won’t be a short snowy walk away and the ball pit in the basement won’t be moved (we haven’t broken that news to the little ones yet).
But, mostly there is joy and anticipation. Joy that my parents are excited and ready for this change, that this move is not coming from financial hardship or worse, the sickness or death of one of them, that God has provided a beautiful, newer home a stone’s throw from my sister and her family, and not too far from our favorite sledding hill. This means they’ll be able to stay in their church and small group, still close to the people whose circles they’ve moved in for so long (but they’ll be in a new county with a much lower property tax!). There’s a pond, a bigger backyard, a barn with a loft, a tremendous amount of storage space (i.e. hiding places for kids), but most importantly, those souls we’ve known and loved will be there, making new memories. Making that house a home.
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One of my favorite childhood stories was The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton. I loved the illustrations of the person-like house, its family growing through the years, children being added to it, the countryside around it changing, the eventual deterioration and neglect of the house … and then the best part of all: the little house being redeemed by a descendant buying it and moving it back out into the country, complete with the new family loving it back to a home.
The end of the story for these 3 houses won’t be wrapped up quite as neatly as my inner Marianne would like. This descendant won’t be buying up any of the three houses and moving them to a new spot, like the Little House. Even though it is bittersweet, it is time to say good-bye, and move on. But I do hope that each house will be taken care of and become a special place to the new families, just as they’ve been to us.
As for my parents’ new home, they consider it one of many of God’s good gifts to them, one they will work hard to steward. By His grace, we will have a new life just as abundant as the old one, but in a new home.
