Perhaps I spoke too soon in quoting the French phrase in my last post about things changing yet staying the same. Sometimes they change...and it's really big change...and they don't stay the same...ever.
When I began this blog in earnest, it was this house, this place where I grew up and to which I returned five years ago when my mother's health began to fail, that was the focal point. It was with wildly mixed emotions that I came back here. I'd left this house, for good I thought, a few decades ago, at the age of 22, never expecting, or necessarily wanting, to return here to live. I was more than ready to go, eager to strike out on my on and create a nest for myself.
Although my mother was quite sad about my leaving the family home and her loving care, I was moving only about 10 minutes away, to my first home of my own. I lived there in that cute 2 bedroom Cape for 13 years, until the call of the countryside, where I spent a good deal of my time, had become so compelling, that I sold the first little house and bought my first house in the country, about 25 miles away. I loved that house - a prim, side-hall colonial with 3 bedrooms upstairs and lots of interior shutters on the windows - in a picture-postcard, little historic hamlet. It was a perfect first country home and I stayed there for seven more years.
I loved living in the country. It was only about a half-hour from town, from my parents and work, so I was never far away or out of touch, and I commuted daily for another decade or so. During that time, I began to crave just a bit more privacy and a bit more of the countryside to myself, so I sold the first country house and moved to a small farm. Very small, comparatively, only about 3 acres, but it had a charming 3-bedroom house tucked down a quiet lane off a dead end, with a long driveway lined by mature old maples, surrounded by woods and fields and the two other neighbors no closer than shouting distance, at most. Best of all, it had a huge (seriously huge) old barn and small adjacent fenced paddock. Finally, once the stalls were rebuilt and the fences repaired, I could bring my horse home, and, eventually, I did. It was the culmination of a life-long dream. For me, it truly was heaven.
I was supremely happy, if periodically challenged, at the farm - something was always breaking. Such is the way with old houses and old fences, but the horses (mine and a friend's), the kitties that I brought there or that were born there, and I were all content there. It was one of the most wonderful times of my life. But, as I said earlier, sometimes things change. Of course, things always change, with predictable inevitability, as time passes.
About 15 years ago, my dad had died at 81 after a long, sad battle with Alzheimer's disease. My mom, who had cared for him at home entirely by herself (her preference - she never wanted anyone else involved) at home, was 11 years younger than Dad. She always had unfathomable depths of courage, strength and stoicism. You'd swear there was pioneer or Puritan blood in her somewhere. She also was the personification of the phrase "quiet dignity." Incredible stuff to witness, but sometimes you're too close to see or perceive it as it's happening until you have the perspective of time. So she was on her own here for another eight years after dad died. But, as I said, sometimes things change and they don't stay the same.
About six years ago, it was becoming apparent, as mom approached 80, that she wasn't as physically strong, or healthy, as she had been. We talked about her moving out to the country with me, since, by then, I had stopped commuting into town and was at the farm. She seemed open to the idea for a while, but when push came to shove, she finally confessed she didn't want leave her home. It had been built by my parents and she had lived here for all of its nearly 50 years of existence. As I mentioned in an earlier post, she always said it was my dad's house, but, really, it was her house. Now, when faced with the prospect of leaving it, she realized she couldn't abide the idea that someone else - a stranger - would be living in her house. That, for her, was unthinkable. This place was her safety and her security. As with many decisions she made, I didn't fully comprehend at first, but eventually I came to understand.
So I made the hard decision to sell the farm, lease a barn nearby with my friend so our horses could remain as stable- and pasture-mates, pack up 15 years of my country life and move back to the city to be with mom. I knew as I had watched her gradually decline over the years that I probably wouldn't have that many left with her. There were no other family members left in the area and my mom and I were very close. If I had to give up a lifestyle that I enjoyed for a few years in order to help her preserve the one that she had worked all of her life to create and maintain, well then, of course, I would.
Fortunately, the real estate market was still strong in 2004 and the farm was such an appealing property, I accepted an attractive offer for it 10 days after I put it on the market. That was a huge relief. The even better news is that I've remained in touch with the very nice woman who bought it, who renovated the house exquisitely beautifully (something I wasn't yet able to do, but had hoped to), so we socialize periodically. That means I get to visit my former home occasionally, genuinely admire the transformation the place has experienced, and smile with enormous satisfaction (and just a little relief) whenever I'm there. Sometimes you don't want to go back to your former homes and sometimes you do. That's one I always enjoy entering.
So I moved back into town to live with Mom - the house was plenty big enough for the two of us, and while the adjustment to the city noises was jarring for me for a few months, I eventually settled in, the kitties - shocked at not being allowed out - eventually settled in, as well. She would never say anything, but I knew Mom wasn't well, so they were precious months - just over two years - that I spent here with her before she died. After she became so weak and finally admitted she was in great pain, she agreed to go to hospital, where she remained for two weeks. There the diagnosis of a terminal illness that I had long suspected was confirmed, but she and I soon made the decision to skip any extraordinary or invasive treatment or a nursing facility, and I brought her back home.
Mom knew, having lost her sister almost a decade earlier to the same intrusive illness she suffered, that the available treatments were neither curative nor palliative and, for her, they not worth the inescapable discomfort. She knew she was dying and conventional medicine did not offer sufficient quality of life and she didn't want any part of the healthcare system's dictates that assuredly would have robbed her of the quiet dignity and privacy that she spent most of her life cultivating. I, too, knew well that it was her right to decide and that, above all, her home was where she wanted to be. There - here - she could slip slowly and quietly away in the place that had always been her sanctuary, without any intrusions from the rest of the world.
I also knew, having cared for many large and small animals - patients that cannot speak - for most of my adult life, that I certainly could do what was necessary to care for one frail mother on my own here at home, and there was no question that's what I would do. One day, one of the visiting hospice nurses who stopped by to check on Mom even asked me if I was a nurse. She told me she inquired because she was impressed with my calmness and capabiliity. She said most people can't deal with caring 24/7 for a loved one who is bedridden and dying. It just seemed to me that you simply do what needs to be done. It's been entrenched in me for decades that it's not an option to abdicate caretaking responsibility for one's pets, so it wasn't a huge stretch to do the same with people I love. It was then that I finally understood so clearly why it was so important for Mom to care for my dad here at home, on her own terms, when he was ill and failing. I was gratified and relieved that I was able to do that for her, too, so she could die quietly, just as he did in her care, at the one place that had been so special to her for so many years.
All of those inevitable life events and changes brought me to today and a decision I'd been mulling for a few years since my mom died a few years ago. I've been here on my own for a few years and had become fairly comfortable again here in my childhood home. I fill any space I'm in, and this one has been no different.
While I could easily stay here, the reality is that it's far more house than either I need or want going forward. While I'm not anywhere near old enough to claim Social Security, I'm no spring chicken either. I've shlepped heavy water buckets twice daily through two feet of snow when the hydrant in the barn froze through the winter. The bigger a house is, the more there is to do to take care of it. Houses are like people, the older they get, the more you need to do to keep them humming. I have felt increasingly that I want to lighten the load, downsize even more, and finally head toward a more temperate climate, especially in winter. I know I can deal with two feet of snow, or whatever a house of this age and size throws at me, but I just don't want to. Been there, done that, and I have other things I'd rather do with my time and money, although I won't suggest I'll never lift another paintbrush or screwdriver, or indulge my passion for design or decorating again. I just don't want to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of a house or its issues. It has to be manageable for me now, and a decade from now. This wonderful sturdy, mid-century modern ranch that has only ever been home to my family, is now at the point where it needs more attention than I want to invest in any house, and while I have filled its spaces, it is a place that always was designed for more than one person. I need to be free of it and to free it to house warmly another family for its next half-century. I'll just keep with me the good memories of having grown up and lived here, as I have with my previous three homes.
So, it is with more mixed emotions that I'm preparing the family homestead to be sold. Earmarking furnishings and household items that were purchased by my parents - my mom, mostly - either to be stored or sold or donated or tossed. The painting work I've been planning ultimately will not be for me to enjoy, but to prepare the house for sale instead. It's always the way. Everytime I tackle a kitchen-related project, I end up selling the whole house, so maybe I'll re-do the kitchen in my next house right away so I can enjoy it a while longer. Either way, I'll chronicle the work and the progress, since we've come this far together. When it's all done, it'll be a way of taking a virtual piece of this place, that has been so special to me and to my parents, with me always.
As for where I'm going, well, I have a destination firmly in mind and a plan to get there, but it's a process, so I'd rather let that play out over time. Suffice it to say it's a good bit warmer there and less harsh in winter than the frosty Northeast, and there are horses there, because it would be unthinkable for me to live in a place where they, and the countryside that surrounds them, weren't nearby. In the meantime, the kitties and I will be heading back, temporarily, to the countryside nearby that I love for a little while until we make the "big" move later in the Spring. It seems appropriate to move during the season of new beginnings. These next few months will be my next big life adventure, for sure. Wait and see.
Sometimes things do change..and they don't stay the same...ever. The reasons for thoses changes can be good or bad, or sometimes a little of both. Whatever the reasons, it's the one thing about life that doesn't change.
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