When Did This House Become Home?
I stood at the window and watched the rain. The trees were still barren, although the buds were just starting to appear all over the wobbly branches. Across the street, I could see the lights in my neighbor’s kitchen.
I turned around to face the room. My antique cookie molds were hung carefully flanking the French doors. The glass top kitchen table was clean – free (for once) of the thumbprints and smudges made by each family member at every meal. The chairs stood in perfect order around the table, as if waiting patiently for occupants that were sure to come. I sighed contentedly.
How differently, I thought, from the first time I had stood in this room and watched the rain. The trees had been barren then too, for it was also in March – last March.
Then the room had been cold because no one heats a vacant house to optimum comfort level. The cabinets, desk and walls looked gloomy in their emptiness. The wood floors were scuffed and dust balls had gathered in each of the corners of the kitchen. What had looked majestic and grand when filled with the previous owner’s belongings now looked cavernous and inhospitable. I had shivered while I stood there.
When had this house become home?
Did it happen when my husband and I closed the deal on the house, signed the mortgage and became the proud new owners?
Did it happen the Saturday night before we moved in – when just he and I sneaked away from the kids and ate a picnic dinner in our large, formal, but very empty, dining room?
When did this house become home?
Did it happen the day before we moved in, when I carefully hung the boys’ dress shirts in their new closets or the first night we all slept there – camped out in sleeping bags in the den because we were too tired to make-up the beds?
Did it happen when I painted the white walls in the foyer dark gray and papered the kitchen in a dark green print and heard my best friend Gloria squeal, “Oh Iris, it looks just like your house now!”? Or maybe it happened after I hung our formal family portrait in the front hall and I hung the towels monogrammed with our initials in the first floor powder room?
When did this house become home?
Perhaps it happened around the time Steven got angry with me for piling dirty wash on the broad and majestic front stairs? Or maybe it started the Sunday afternoon when we all sat out on the deck and laughed at Sam’s new buzz haircut? Or maybe it happened the night Frank proudly carried through the front door the “Most Improved Player” trophy he had won?
When did this house become home?
Maybe it happened the day we all pitched in and mulched the shrubs? Or the first of many times that Max angrily slammed his bedroom door shut after being told “No”? Or maybe it happened the first time Louie left his new sandbox uncovered overnight and it rained? Or the time Sam slammed his bike into the freshly painted garage door and left highly visible black smudges?
When did this house become home?
Could it have been the first night Harry came home from college and we actually had all five of our boys under one roof for a Friday night dinner? Or maybe it happened when the bus dropped off Louie after kindergarten one afternoon and I heard him run in, slam the door and yell, “Mom, I’m home!”?
Come to think of it, I’m not really sure when it happened. I just know that it did.
The above column was written over 36 years ago.
I guess sometimes it’s better not to know the future.
Two short years after we moved into our “dream home” we moved out – to a more modest, more toned-down, more affordable house and after awhile that too became “home”.
And when the nest emptied? It sounds cliché, but we did move to Florida. None of our sons had ended up settling in the town where they grew up so we packed our belongings and moved South to Tampa where we would enjoy close proximity to two of our sons.
So why am I posting this now?
My husband and I aren’t moving from our current home, where we have lived with an emptied nest for almost 20 years, but I AM making a move.
In the next couple of weeks, you will notice that my weekly column will be delivered from another home so to speak. The new house (platform) is SUBSTACK.
You can continue to comment as always, but your comments will now have the advantage of being seen, read and commented on by others, just not me. And together we will learn about the many layers of Substack, the many opportunities to build communities and the many amazing writers sharing their thoughts, experiences and stories on Substack.
The name of my new Substack column is yet to be determined.
Either:
COFFEE TABLE CONFIDENTIAL
or
COFFEE TALK CONFIDENTIAL.
The tagline is:
What best friends talk about,
don’t talk about
& should talk about
I can’t quite decide between TABLE and TALK.
So let me know your preference.
E mail: irisruthpastor@gmail.com
In the meantime, the coffee is brewing. And refills are free.
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,