by 
The last two months have been a blur for my husband and I. We have had the task of emptying his childhood home. His parents, both in their 90’s, moved to a retirement facility earlier this year, albeit with much resistance.
For eight months the house remained empty and intact. Even though working gradually through winter weekends would have been easier on our schedule we had strict orders not to touch anything. No preemptive sorting or organizing. No freshening up the walls with new coats of paint. The house was their back-up plan to return to. This in itself is another long story, as you might imagine.
We were lucky that they were careful spenders because they never threw anything out.
In August, the decision to sell was told to us and no doubt it was for ‘immediate action’. (You have to laugh, just to keep your stress level at bay.) As some of you might already know, cleaning out a house is no easy feat, especially when it’s not your stuff. His parents had lived in that house for 56 years. We were lucky that they were careful spenders because we found out they never threw anything out. I’m not exaggerating when I say that. There were prescription bottles dated from 1970, every single appliance manual, important phone numbers written on tiny pieces of scrap paper, clothes, purses that disintegrated when you picked them up, coats from the 1950s, tools, wood, plastic shopping bags folded up neatly and stuffed into drawers. Every dress I ever saw my mother in-law wear was in her closet and the matching leftover cutout fabric was in the drawer in the sewing room.
If you saw it you might have thought that time stood still in that house, with the original mid century dining set and the milk box at the back door. This house that now holds stale air and dust was once alive and moving through the decades with a growing and active family. Two boys went from bicycles and shinny hockey in the park to university and careers, to marrying in their twenties. Before you knew it that family of four became a family of eleven.
In the last few months, and really the last few years, much time has been spent in reflection. Each season of our life brings with it something new. Often we don’t even realize until we are smack dab in the midst of this transition and it can feel so surprising. Sometimes we can greet change with excitement and the promise of the future. Sometimes there are more goodbyes than hellos, painful losses, and now this time the shift of responsibilities from one generation down to the next. As we packed up rooms and boxes with the help of our own daughters now both in their twenties, I couldn’t help but think about the passage of time.
I was just seventeen when I first walked in that house. Decades have gone by and now we are the ones in the mirror with grey hairs at our temples.
The house is finally empty, the hours and hours of boxing, selling, donating, storing, purging and cleaning is done for now. In between the next list of important to-dos we have been given we might be able to start to process this change. For a tiny house it sure held a lot of stuff, literally and emotionally. I was just seventeen when I first walked in that house. Decades have gone by and now we are the ones in the mirror with grey hairs at our temples. It is true that time really does fly by.
As this house goes onto its new chapter I hope the familiar creaks of the wood floor in the hallway will be the sound of a new family making memories of their own.
