House and Home

I buried a nickel under the porch when I was 8, she said, but one day my grandma died & they sold the house & I never got to go back for it.
A nickel used to mean something, I said.
She nodded. It still does, she said & then she started to cry.
-Brian Andreas

Today is my Birthday. The house is still and the chill of night has settled in and around me and our home. The youthful souls that once beckoned from our doorway are safely in bed and dreaming in sweet satisfaction of parental attention, endless laughter with friends and an abundance of treat filled fun. I love how happy kids feel on Halloween and I hope never to forget how that felt to me as a child.

But tonight sleep eludes me. My mind remains active and my body is restless with memories of my past and thoughts of the future.

When I was 10 my parents built a new house and our family moved 140 miles away from my Omaha school, all of my friends and the only home I had ever known. I remember this as a time filled with sorrow, uncertainty and promise. And a few months ago my Dad, a widower now, rented an apartment and has slowly convinced himself to move pieces of his life away from our home and into this other place. And in this moving he is struggling against leaving behind 40 years of treasured family memories on the promise of an uncertain future happiness. And I’ve prodded him to do this - to purge his unused possessions and leave the loneliness of the big old house that was once so lovingly kept but now holds such inescapable sadness for him. And now that he’s finally done it, it's only beginning to register just how monumental this occasion is for me.

Sometimes obvious things don’t sink in like they should. But then something happens and all of a sudden I get a cold slap of clarity and evasive cognizance that now seem so obvious. Like the eventual awareness of my parents’ anguish as I drove away, never looking back, with all my possessions in eager anticipation of my first semester of college. This sadness was only ever fully realized years later when my own children returned this “favor” albeit in a much gentler fashion.

I spent today with my Dad in his empty old home and his new apartment. And though I regret having nearly forgotten, I’ve come to recall at 53 that there’s something special about spending your birthday in your childhood home with your parent. And though this will be my last such birthday, I’m happy for his unburdening of ghosts and home maintenance and the promise of good times with so many other residents in similar circumstances. But at the same time, I now share the pangs of loss that I should have understood in him.

And as I sit here in the moonlit darkness of my own family’s home, I wonder how I’ll ever become responsible for loading up all of my wife’s and children’s memories and leaving these empty rooms behind. And despite a burgeoning desire to turn this page, I love our home and our years here together so much that I can’t bear to think about this eventuality.

Good-night Dad. I hope you know that I’m thinking about you.