Though some would not understand, I feel very bad for her as I have inherited my childhood home and am about to uproot her from the only home she's ever worked for (with the help of some inheritance money from both of our families). With logic and finances dictating the obvious decision to move into the bigger, nicer house, what choice does she have? She recognizes the "logical and financial decision," but she still can't help but feel she's being dragged off without any say in the matter. She's smart enough and mature enough to realize the wisdom in this, but it doesn't help the unfounded feeling of being whisked away into a new (and likely easier) life she never asked for. I truly feel bad for her, but what can I do?
We have been, like so many others, struggling to survive financially for many years. I believe we were a bit premature in buying our little house in 2005, but we've made the best of it in a troubled economy (if that isn't an entirely overused phrase lately). With this latest development, our financial burden will ease considerably. This is good news for us, but at what a price?
I have a love/hate relationship with my current home. It was exciting and liberating to be the first-time home-buyer and, at first, was totally in love. Irrationally, though, since then, many very bad things have happened in the intervening years and I have illogically blamed them all on the house as if it were a magically cursed mistake. Many childish arguments have ensued over the years with Sarah over our declining financial situation; always culminating in me making the mature and rational decision to "sell this f**king moneypit!" Sarah always claims that I hate this house and, in some ways, she may be right.
Now I am faced with the reality of leaving here, and I'm sure that I will miss this little hovel more than I can imagine at the moment. I really have had some good times here, despite it all. Those in the know will fondly remember the endless Friday night party/gathering/raping-of-good-music-with-my-guitar that I have come to live for. At my wife's suggestion, years ago, I did up our one-car garage as a white-trash party room where I can host a bunch of twenty/thirty/forty/fifty-somethings that I have had the honor of befriending throughout the years as we drink from the sinful bottles haphazardly arranged on the aging kitchen table I call my bar. These people are my life's blood and a good chunk of the reason I wake up in the morning. Again, Sarah's hidden wisdom prevailed back then.
My ancestral home is pretty big and will serve as a much better place to gather and live. It's a two-story, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, colonial. It's been well cared for and they even had a gorgeous sunroom built on the back a couple of years ago. It's downright palatial for me and the wife and our two pet rats. Dad left us plenty of money to pay off the last of the 30-year mortage (bought in 1981, so it's nearly done). So, a ostensibly a free house, two nice cars, and a pretty sizable chunk of 401K money all for me and my lost and displaced wife. What could be better for a spoiled-brat-only-child and his cute little life-partner?
I want none of it.
Occasionally, I just look at the framed picture of Mom and Dad taken on the final cruise my mom was able to take (and the photo-manipulation job I did at Mom's request to erase some medical bruising on her arms... that I never got done when she was alive) and I choke up a bit. They stare out at me telling me that I need to move on; that they have worked so hard all their lives to make sure I had a future once they were gone. At 41, I have to be the "big boy" now, but I just stomp my feet and yell in my best mature voice "I don't wanna!"
To put even more pressure on, I have also inherited what my cousin Joe said (as the minister at Dad's funeral); the need to be "the glob of glue" that holds the family together. Dad was neither the oldest or wisest of our large family, but he certainly was the loudest (a trait which he passed on to his son) and, for this, he had become the unnamed patriarch of the Manns family. It now falls to me (at least in Ohio) to try and step up and take over this role. How will I really do this when most of the family still considers me to be "one of the kids?" It's going to be a long journey; one I hope I can make for the sake of all around me.
As it stands, I loathe going over to Dad's house. Very little is moved or changed since the late-Saturday where he was miraculously able to dial 911 and save all of us the unpleasantness of discovering him lifeless the next day. After the funerals and gatherings were over and Lenny and Lisa went back home to Florida, the house is a forlorn echo of the man who worked so hard to erase the ghost of Mom from it since 2007. Now, I have to power up my unlicensed nuclear accelorator, call Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd, and do some metaphorical ghost-busting of my own. The long, sad road of making it our home has begun but at a very slow rate. Of course, there is mountains of paperwork and legalities to get through first, but I need to get over there and start soul-cleansing; walking that fine line between embracing and erasing his memory and influence. Then, there will be that eerie first night that we sleep there in that king-size bed surrounded by the essence of Mom and Dad that will likely always be there.
I look at the picture again and they both have that face on now that says "Don't be stupid, son, it's your house now. Do what you want with it. We're gone and we don't care." Even in death, they scold me for being silly. I would listen to them... but they left me all by myself so I'll act silly if I want to...
I stick my tongue out at the picture and say "nya nya nya."
It's been 7 years as of the 11th that I lost my Father. I feel his prescence in the house to this day. It's unavoidable. He was part of what made it a home and that feeling reverberates throughout it's walls. Personally, I've grown to find it comforting. Will I feel the same when my Mother goes? I don't know so I can't really compare my situation to yours. Not yet and hopefully not for years to come.
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