Requiem For a Home

On Monday June 3rd, the house I grew up in with my family is being put on the block for auction. It's currently in a state of disarray as the family it was leased to have gone and left in the night. Literally not merely figuratively. The power has been turned off there for who knows how long, as the air inside is rancid with the acidic taste of rotten food that was housed in the refrigerator. There are piles of trash and litter throughout the rooms, signs of a life that abruptly fled, as if the authorities were coming in, and the inhabitants of the place fled. The humidity from the barely open windows is causing the woodwork to feel damp and enhances a musty smell to the place.

I'm in the closet that's under the stairwell, using my phone as an impromptu flashlight. Concentrating the LED light to find where my things would be, which looks buried in a compact pile of other things the tenants brought in. I can't find a single thing in here, maybe because the light is sub par, maybe because there's too much of their stuff in here, or maybe it's because I already know that in all likelihood, what I left at the house has been either pawned off for a pittance of cash, or set on the curb with the trash to be picked up.

As I'm going up the stairs to the second floor of the house in the futile hope that my things may be in a closet upstairs, I'm stricken with sadness in how this house has devolved in the past few years. The house was always known either as the Dawe House, or it was known as, "that big blue house with the pine trees in the front". As a small child I remember just how vast and giant it looked. It still has that same look to it, despite the fact I'm 38. For over three decades, this house was made into a home. The lawn was as large as the house, and was cut my brother and I via a push mower when we were 10 or 11. The living room had actually been a small class room for a while, as my mom had created Kinder College for really young kids. In the old days, there was no central heat or air. We wouldn't get that until 1987. Lots of box fans and oscillating fans in the summer. There was a large floor register in the middle of one room that would heat things quite well in the winter, except for the kitchen, it was always chilly in there.

This house went through some changes, and yet it was the family home. Where children grew up, graduated, left and sometimes came back. Where things with my parents took a turn for the worst, and their marriage dissolved. It was a lot of things I'm sure to my siblings as well as myself in the end.

And now, now it's gone.

An end to a proverbial era so to speak. I'm going to miss that place.