Home

I work on a University campus and it is the Friday before graduation. Commencement is tomorrow and all around me as I walk through campus are the little reminders of the transient life of a student. Dorms are inside out as mini-fridges and microwaves, towels and hangers, laundry baskets and clothing are being pushed on carts to awaiting SUV's and mini-vans. It makes me sad sometimes, to watch this yearly ritual of departure/return. Parents, receiving their kids back into the nest. Sights set on home and possibly on summer jobs or reunions with friends. Perhaps a summer adventure of travel is ahead for them. Without realizing it, I'm sure, they have the comfort of a mother and/or a  father waiting for the next cartload of possessions-preparing to arrange them just-so into the vehicle so everything fits perfectly, with just the right amount of space left for each passenger.Then it's off for home and the familiarity of a house known by its every creak and scratched bits of paint, childhood bedrooms and old haunts from adolescence.
Even as an adult I have to admit the need for the comfort of a parent and the familiarity of home. About a year and a half ago my father sold the house I spent a large majority of my growing up years, from age 10 until I moved out for college, back for a brief stay then on to my own apartment, job and life.
There was something unsettling me, as the house was sold, and the possessions were being packed and stored and moved. I felt like a kite that had been let go of, the string dragging on the ground snagging on trees and branches nothing catching long enough to moor me in place. It was like I was losing the last connection to something that felt solid. At the time it had been just over two years since my mother died and watching the house go was like losing her again. No more walking through the familiar rooms echoing with her laughter, or drenched with her scent. The reminders of her presence stretching thin and fading away.
I had this moment, driving to work and pulling into the parking lot where I suddenly couldn't breathe. A moment of deep, unrelenting anguish. All I could do was pull back out of the parking lot and head home for the last time. I drove the 30 odd minutes, just trying to catch my breath and understand what was happening to me. When I got to the house and pulled in, my father was there. He wasn't supposed to be, but there he was. The minute I saw him I felt myself start to crumble inside. I followed him in the house where he was making lunch. I couldn't talk. He asked me if I was feeling blue and I began to cry, and my father held me. You are never too old to need your father to hold you. When I was done crying I explained that somehow, losing the house was making me unbelievably sad and surprisingly so. I didn't expect it, I thought I had processed the loss of my mother and I thought I was doing well, when out of nowhere, I wasn't. I knew that the house needed to sell and my father needed to move on with his life, yet I was crushed by the loss of my home, the one I had lived in when my entire family was together.
My father made lunch for both of us and we sat in the kitchen eating our sandwiches and talking. He talked me back to calm and my breath was coming much easier when lunch was finished. I felt safe and comforted, like I had been put back together again from the million pieces I had broken into on the drive home.
Later, when the last bit of furniture and small forgotten items were finally emptied from the house, I walked through it alone, saying goodbye, hearing the echo of my steps. I don't know if I was saying goodbye to my mother, or the house or the time spent in it, or the ghosts that live there, but I was saying goodbye to something; my past, my history...I wonder if the new owners will find my mother's lost diamond? Will they find the feather that I slipped between the cracks in the floorboards of my old closet? Just a tiny piece of me left behind to say-I was there. We were all there.