The sale is over.
All of the furniture is gone, thank goodness. About 50% of the books found homes. Much of the linens and glassware and kitchen stuff left. Almost everything in the basement is gone.
We have about 25% of the stuff left that we had before the sale started. And I am glad it's over. I almost don't care if the people who ran the sale robbed us blind or not, just so long as we don't have to deal with it anymore.
People will still be coming to pick up things this week, and we'll be packing up the leftovers. Sis was over there with a friend of hers this morning doing just that while I went to work.
Sometimes it is good to have to work. :)
There was a funny thing I noticed when I went over there last night to see how things went. With all the "things" gone, with all the furniture gone, with all the touches that made it "Mom's" gone, it's just a house.
It's no longer the place where Sis and I placed our footprints when the concrete for the porch was poured. It isn't where we dug the basement out from under the house in the middle of the Spring rains. It isn't where I learned to skip, or cook, or where thousands of dishes were dried at the sink. It isn't the place where we celebrated so many Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, brought our dates in to meet our parents, brought our children in to be babysat.
It isn't any of those things, or any more.
It's just a house.
Because the heart of that house, the one that made it a home for all those years, the one whose love held it all together, is no longer there. Her things are gone. She's moved on.
But the HOME lives on, and it's because of her.
I'm sitting here looking at a photo of Mom and me, taken on her very favorite holiday of the year, Christmas. I can see every inch of the home she made for all of us, her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild, as though I was there right now. I remember all the happy times we had in that house, as well as the not-so-happy times. I remember our life being there. From board games to peeled apples to watching the first man land on the moon, through marriages, babies and grandchildren, she was the center of our family.
She cared enough to make sure the HOME was in our hearts, along with our great love for her.
And there it will remain.
1 comment:
I have been thinking of you so much over the past week, Chris. I am so glad the sale is over and that the house is now not the home. You know what I mean. It comes all of a sudden, doesn't it - the change in the way we see things. Thank heavens you had strangers in to do it for you.
I am trying to get some semblance of routine going here. It is a struggle. Mother back in residence is proving a challenge, especially after she hurt herself. And I am exhausted. So on that note, I am headign for bed. You are much loved, my friend. I hope that migraine of yours has bitten the dust too.
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