it's funny how attached you can get to a house, even one you never lived in. four walls and a roof, a floor, some windows- that's all it is, really. but a house and the things in it come to stand for so much more. memories, both good and bad, that color the four walls so much more thoroughly than paint. the couch you used to take naps on when you were a child, as ugly as sin, but still so important; the rickety dining room table that you would never really use, but you'd never have the heart to give away; the old fashioned looking desk where you found your first dirty magazines, stuffed away under stacks of useless papers. these things and this place mean so much, though they are in actuality just that- things and a place.
as some of you know, for many complicated legal reasons my late father's house- which now technically belongs to me and my sister- can never be sold, so for the past few years we have been renting it out. the first couple we rented it to were wonderful tenants and took great care of the house and all of the things in it. they rented it furnished, so all my stepmothers and i had to do to get the house ready for them was clean out drawers and pack away valuables, stuffing everything else- all of my father's towels and sheets and knick-knacks and books and memories- into the attic and leaving the house not terribly unlike it had been when Dad was alive. easy, on so many levels. last summer those tenants moved on, and for the past eight months the house has been vacant, a silent shrine in the woods to my father, as if he would be returning any moment from the duck blind to light the woodstove and watch a basketball game on tv. in other words, just how i wanted it, though knew it could not remain.
a few weeks ago my uncle Robert called to tell me that he had found tenants for the house, a couple of nice older ladies who loved the place and wanted to sign a 5-year lease. they had excellent references, Robert loved them, and they wanted to move in right away. perfect. except that they had their own furniture and they didn't need Dad's, so we would have to empty the house- immediatly. this was the hard part i had been hoping would never come, my shrine was being torn down never to exist again. though the new tenants did very graciously agree to vacate the premises for the week of my wedding so that we can use the house, i had privately hoped that the house would remain unrented until after the wedding, leaving my shrine intact for that highly emotional last unmarried week. no such luck- my last single night will be spent sleeping in a stranger's bed.
to make matters worse, Robert had originally told me that the new tenants were understanding about the quick move and the problems it presented to me and my stepmother in terms of getting there to clean the house out. he said that they were willing to "work around" the old furniture or possibly store it in the basement until we could get there to move it, in march. today i got an email from Robert that, in fact, everything needs to be out of the house by the 27th- 10 days from now. my uncle is a relatively clueless man when it comes to other people's feelings, but this just goes above and beyond all levels of common sense or consideration. even if i was unemployed and in possession of a private jet to fly me to maryland at a moment's notice, it would still take more than a few hours to go through my dead father's house and pack it up for the last time ( by myself, as my stepmother has a demanding 50 hour week job and my sister is in school).
basically i just feel overwhelmed. angry and frustrated and sad and overwhelmed. my hero of a stepmother found a moving company who would pack up the house and drive everything to richmond to a storage unit, but that means that strangers will be packing up my father's house and i will never see it intact again. then all of his things- which now belong to Rachel and me, but which neither of us currently have a place for- will be sitting in some depressing tomb of a storage unit in richmond, a town i rarely visit. all of my memories, all of his things, all that i have left of him, just sitting in a climate controlled box among many other climate controlled boxes, being forgotten.
why can't i just keep my shrine? why do i have to be the one with no parents? wasn't losing my mother enough, did i have to lose my dad too? it's not fucking fair- i don't want money or furniture or pictures, I WANT MY FUCKING PARENTS BACK!!!! everyone gets to have parents, why don't i? what did i do? WHAT DID I DO????
i suppose this post was misnamed- i'm not doing a very good job of moving on at all.
2 comments:
I can't answer to the part about why you had to lose your parents so young. There's no good answer for that, and you know that nothing I could say would make you feel better about it anyway.
When Marc and I moved into my grandmother's condo (when we moved back to Richmond) my father had never changed a thing about it in 10 years. I mean, there was still food in the fridge and the panty. Her glasses were still on the table from where she had left them the day she went to the hospital. We quickly had to pack everything up. We gave a lot away to charity...now who knows if we should have done that. There was too much and we weren't sure what to do with it all. What do you do with the contents of someone's life?
My mother and grandmother still haven't packed up my grandfather's clothes. He died about 5 years ago (I can't believe it's been that long.). I'm not sure if I have a real point...I guess that there is NO good time to have to pack up your father's things. I guess you could leave it as a shrine forever, but is that the the healthy thing? I don't know. I really can't judge. Perhaps it's better to have someone else do it...I don't know...I just know that the people in my family never seem to get around to doing it. It's very hard.
thanks for the support ladies, i am feeling a little better now, but you're right, this is going to suck no matter when i do it.
in answer to your suggestion sarah, no, that's not really an option; these women do sound like ideal tenants and they have already signed a 5 year lease, which at least means we won't have to deal with this stuff again for a while. and though i dread packing up his things, it probably is healthier for me to just do it and move on than to maintain my shrine and stay mired in my own denial.
sometimes the progress is worth the pain.
Post a Comment