Goodbye, Old House
By Elizabeth Traff      Liz has just recently started a business using her love for nature photography. She sells note cards and posters with her pictures on them. Her website has a link from the main EARTH page. She also enjoys teaching preschoolers, scrapbooking, and vacationing with her family. The story included here was written in the summer of 2008, before a lightning strike, subsequent fire, and extensive water damage occured at her childhood home.      The time is coming to say goodbye to the house that has always been "home" to me -- the three story, six bedroom, 1920's "mansion" that my parents purchased for $9,000 when I was six months old. The problem is, I don't know how to do that. I mean, the building itself isn't really all that much. It has fallen into some disrepair -- the wallpaper is faded, the old wood floors creak, the paint is peeling, the windows need replacing, and the plumbing has some issues. Any sensible person would understand that a great deal of work would need to be done in order for this home to be considered "elite" in the current housing market. And I am not really finding any difficulty parting with what's in the house. My five brothers and I have great relationships, and we are all free to take anything that is meaningful to us. But my parents were not wealthy people, and there are no extravagant pieces of furniture to be fought over. It is not what's in the house -- it is what's not in the house that bothers me.
     When I look in the back room, I still see my mom there, operating that old wringer washing machine that she labored over for years. I see the old layout of the kitchen, before the remodel. I can picture myself sitting in the breakfast nook, getting creative with a coloring book or some PlayDoh, or maybe dying Easter eggs. In the living room, I see my brothers wrestling with great enthusiasm and breaking the leg of that poor coffee table one more time while Mom looks on, from a safe distance, shaking her head and scolding them. In the dining room, the old, creaky table should be fully extended with all the leaves inserted and with a fancy table cloth in place as we prepare for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter. If it's Thanksgiving, I can picture fun times with the Anderson cousins, as we run up the front staircase and down the back one -- with someone inevitably taking a tumble down those steep back stairs at some point during the day. I can almost, but not quite smell Sunday chicken dinner, Thanksgiving turkey, or Easter ham. A chocolate cake should be in the oven, and Mom should be encouraging someone (maybe family, maybe neighbors) to sit down and visit for a few minutes until it's ready to serve. Or maybe she's making fudge. She'll need me to pull out a finger-full to test if it's ready to drop! Upstairs, Jon and Don sleep at the end of the hall. The room overlooking the front porch belongs to Steve and Bim, and the little attic room is Jerry's. That room is scary! Mom and Dad have the big, central room, and my room is in the back of the house, with a balcony that overlooks the side yard.
     The balcony is long gone now, as the main-floor-bedroom-remodel took it out years ago. But from it, I can see my mom, hanging clothes on the line as she visits with her neighbor, Harriet Kelly. I can see the neighborhood, alive with young children who run from yard to yard, stopping only to climb a tree or swing on the big swing set at the Kellys'. My mom has been gone since 1999, but when I am in this house she is everywhere. Maybe we're getting ready for a picnic. She spreads the checkered cloth on the picnic table, and I help bring out plates and silverware. Once we're outside, we are a part of that wonderful, rambling yard. There's an orchard on the other side of the garage, horses in the pasture out back, and probably a dog or cat running around underfoot. After supper, Dad will go out to the pasture and yell, "Come, ponies!" The horses know his voice and come running, expecting something tasty to eat. We might catch a couple and go for an evening ride through the cornfields around town. I smell the sweat of the horses and the leather of the saddles. It's a perfect ending to a carefree day.
     You must see my problem by now. How do you say goodbye to things that aren't even really there, and haven't been for years -- things that are only shadows and echoes of what once was? Dad is in the care center in a wheelchair. Mom died at Christmas time nine years ago. Life has changed in the 48 years since my parents purchased this home, and this home has witnessed those changes. Just last Christmas, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren filled this home to the rafters with wild excitement and unbridled joy. The memories don't stop in my childhood; they encompass the lives of my children as well. I know those memories won't go away once the house is sold. I have been blessed to call this town, this neighborhood, and this house my "home" for so many years. And I need to say it, so I will. Goodbye, old house. It is not what's in you that I will miss -- it is what's not in you that sends these tears down my face.