This Old House-Part 2

It is amazing what a house will hold. It is not unusual for someone to live somewhere a few years, move, and wonder how in the world they could have accumulated so much stuff in such a short period of time. Imagine then, if you will, a family of five moving into a house, then one by one, each child grows up and moves away, but all three leave some stuff behind because it isn’t needed “right now”. Then Grandma moves in with Mom and Dad before all three move to a two-bedroom duplex (taking what they need for “right now”) and the youngest child (now grown and married), moves in with her husband and their son along with ALL of their belongings. And then, three years later, they move (separately), taking only what they need and Mom, Dad, and Grandma move back in, where Mom and Dad settle down for the next fifteen years.

This old house, which has been in the family since 1968 seems to have an unlimited capacity for belongings. Just as there was always room for one more at our table, there always seemed to be room to store whatever you just couldn’t part with, but didn’t quite have room for. My father who simply cannot pass up a bargain, has a daughter who clings to virtually every book, object and piece of furniture that hold sentimental value, and she in turn (notice how I am referring to myself in third person), has a son whose favorite hobby is going to thrift stores and garage sales with….you guessed it, his grandfather. This combination produced a cycle of acquisition that had the house groaning at the seams.

When it became apparent that living on multiple levels was not going to be in my parents’ best interest, we gingerly approached the idea of selling the house and moving them into an apartment closer to us. We started taking them on apartment tours to test the waters, and found exactly what we were looking for down the street from us, close enough for our son to walk to visit his grandparents. We were already taking him to see them almost every weekend, and they would still drive thirty minutes in the middle of the week to come pick him up and take him to dinner, so the idea of having him near enough to visit on a daily basis was appealing enough to soften the sting of leaving the house. It would be a big adjustment, and would take some major downsizing, but everyone seemed to be on the same page…until the first garage sale.

It turned out that my father couldn’t pass up a bargain at his own garage sale. We would get his okay to put something in the sale, only to discover him carrying it back into the garage on the day of the sale, claiming the item was worth too much to sell for that little. There was no way we could even entertain the possibility of putting the house on the market without significantly reducing the amount of inventory in the house, so we finally gave up, deciding they just weren’t ready to move to an apartment. For the time being, we put the move on hold.

What happened next, I cannot explain. All I remember is I sat straight up in bed one morning and exclaimed to my husband, “I have an idea!” He tried valiantly to keep his face neutral, but I’m pretty sure I saw a look of fear in his eyes–me saying “I have an idea!” does not always end well. So that was how the plan started–we would sell our house, move my mom and dad into an apartment down the street from my sister and brother-in-law and we would move into their house. That way, they wouldn’t have to get rid of any of their belongings right away….we could help them go through it a little bit at a time, until they were satisfied that they had everything they needed and wanted in their new home.

Math never was my strongest subject. I was pretty good at memorizing, so I could DO it, I just didn’t always understand what I was doing. I can still hear my high school algebra teach yell at me (okay, I’m sure Mr. Kaifes wasn’t exactly yelling at me, but standing at the chalk board, sweating, it felt like it), “WATSON, JUST CRANK THE FORMULA!” But there is no formula for figuring out how much stuff will fit in a house that is already groaning at the seams when you take out only what will fit in an apartment but add the contents of another four-bedroom house with a full basement (and I do mean full) as well as a two-car garage which held one car for all of six months over an eleven year period. And even if there WAS a formula, I’m pretty sure it can’t be solved.

Moving into the house where your parents raised you, where you and your family have years of history that do not include a spouse, can make ownership of a house feel very one-sided. I don’t know that either my husband or I felt like this was a permanent arrangement, but over the course of three and a half years, it actually began to feel like OUR home. We made some long-needed repairs, and uncovered the hardwood floors inexplicably hidden by my mother under the luxury of wall-to-wall carpet. We grew to love it in a different way, and for a couple of holidays, it continued to be the gathering place it had always been, the coordination of numerous dishes now passed down to the cousins. But what had become a barrier to daily living for my folks made visiting us a major undertaking, and my home, which had always been a hub of activity and celebration, became a place where the bustle of preparation involved just two people making a dish or two, packing it up, traveling across town for a gathering of just the immediate family, then returning late to an empty house, no candles to extinguish, no leftovers to divvy up, no stacks of china to wash, and no tablecloths to launder, fold, and put away. In a last-ditch effort to keep the house a central part of our family, we asked my parents if they would like to move in with us, but they declined.

It was at this moment that my husband and I were presented with an opportunity to move to New York—not totally unexpected, but the timing was a bit of a surprise. We had just completed some major repairs to the foundation of the house—not very glamorous, but we were determined that we would start with the basics, and move on to the fun stuff in time. But our opportunity (a post for another day) didn’t give us that time, so we found ourselves having to make a decision whether or not to sell the house and risk losing what we had already put into it. The stakes were even higher since we didn’t know whether or not we would like living in New York or if we might one day want to return to Kansas City. I couldn’t bring myself to let go of the house forever yet, so we searched and found renters who needed a lot of space for a reasonable amount of money for a set amount of time. We figured three years was long enough to see if we really liked New York.

We really liked New York. In fact, we loved New York and wanted to stay. After three years of renting the house, it became obvious that we either needed to sink a considerable amount of additional money into repairing and updating the home, or to admit that we ourselves were getting to be an age that living in an apartment was a better long-term solution. Although we revisited the idea of making the house accessible for my parents, the location of the house that was desirable for raising a family, was not the best for aging parents who need frequent transportation and a son who, though unable drive, is independently mobile in an area where sidewalks lead to restaurants, shops, and recreation. Realizing that we all seemed to be happy where we were, we took a deep breath and made the decision we had been avoiding for several years—we would sell my childhood home.

Anyone who has ever put a house on the market knows the headache it can be…which is why it took us another year to actually take the plunge. We talked to real estate agents to see when we should sell and how much we should expect to put into it to improve its marketability. Wanting to give our renters plenty of time to make other arrangements, we alerted them of our plans and offered extensions every six months to allow us to prepare the house for sale at the optimal time. I will admit, I was somewhat relieved the first two times we offered that they decided they wanted to stay. The third window of opportunity arose when a family emergency had me in Kansas City for an extended period of time and we were firm—the lease would not be renewed.

We were lucky and found a buyer–or rather, he found us–before we had a chance to list it. As we wait for the title work to be completed, we have been removing the last of our possessions being stored on the property. Our buyer, a neighbor, stops by frequently to take measurements and chat about his plans. I return almost daily to clean–he assures me it isn’t necessary, but like Golde, I don’t want to leave a dirty house.

The process has been a bit like removing a band-aid slowly…probably more painful in the long run, but pulling the adhesive off a little bit as you take a deep breath, gaining strength for the next little bit, bracing for the sting. Each tiny pull gives me the opportunity to reassess the decision, to put it in perspective, to convince myself we are doing the right thing. I walk through the house, now empty of all but the memories, my footsteps echoing much like they did when I stepped through the front door for the first time in 1968 and marveled at the long expanse of living room ending in a large red-brick fireplace, since painted white by my mother. I finger the large nails my father drove into the bricks to hang two chubby plaster cherubs, who relocated to New York with me and now hang on a wall in my apartment, flanking the mirror over my grandmother’s piano. I walk out the french doors and sit for a few minutes on the porch swing, the oldest remaining item on the property tied to my childhood. I push off gently with the ball of my foot to hear the familiar pitches of the chains that suspend the swing rubbing together as I sway back and forth and watch my next door neighbor clear out my beloved honeysuckle vines, the only thing still holding up the fence my grandfather built. I walk back inside, where it no longer smells like I remember it smelling as a child, a mixture of Lysol, starch, and freshly baked bread.

As I walk through the empty rooms, I remind myself that it is only a piece of property, and letting go of a childhood home is not a unique experience, that change is inevitable, But still, this one piece of property has remained a constant throughout 50 years of change in our family. Over those fifty years, I have been a child and I have been an adult. I have been both a daughter and a mother, both single and married, all in this house. What I learned in this house has shaped who I have, and continue to become. It is here that I learned how to follow a recipe, make a bed, and do the laundry. It was here that I learned not only to set a table, but that there is always room for one more; not only to clear the table, but to let the dishes wait, that of all the places to be, together is best. It was here that I learned not to leave damp towels on hardwood floors, to do a somersault at the top of the stairs, or to put a thermometer under hot water. It was here I learned that sometimes you have to do things you are afraid to do, but if you close your eyes, take a deep breath and reach around the corner for the light switch, the dark won’t last forever.

It was here that I stretched beyond the gentle guidance of my parents and began to make my own decisions about faith, love, and life. And I learned that making decisions is hard, but that they are the starting point for the next leg of your journey. Fifty-two years ago, my parents bought this old house. Twenty-five years ago, I bought it from them, and now, it has been sold to a new owner. Within these walls, new lives will be shaped, new memories will be made, and new journeys will begin.