My parents moved into a new house recently. The house they moved away from was the house I grew up in. Before I moved out a couple of years ago, I had known no other home, except for some brief stays at the college dorm. And even then, can you really count a college dormatory as a home?
That house that I once knew as my childhood home is no more. I guess memories of the past and present sorta evaporated once they made my old bedroom into an office. The kitchen, living room, and other rooms were somewhat how they were. But yet, I’ve been gone for way too long to consider it a home.
I do have somewhat of an emotional attachment to the house. I’m sorry to see it empty. At one time it was full of life…when my sister and I were still kids and living at home. Now it is merely a shell of a house. Some furniture is still there…the stuff they want left behind…eventually sold or donated to Katrina victims.
I have mostly good memories of the house. The long driveway which I used to ride my bicycle down…the front yard where we would play summer games of bad minton….the garden where my mom spent so much of her time picking tomatoes and squash…the den where I spent time in front of an old Zenith TV playing with my Hot Wheels cars, Transformers, and G.I. Joes. The memories are still there…in one’s own mind and in the pictures from old family photo albums.
I’m feeling somewhat like my great-grandmother must have felt like when she was told that the house she had spent 60+ years in had been torn down. She must have felt somewhat betrayed and helpless (being in a nursing home in Sparta…).
Can one grieve the loss of a house like one grieves for the loss of an old friend? Maybe. Maybe the house is an old friend who has changed to the point of not being recognizable anymore.