I really must vent today.
In 1917 my grandfather bought a house and had it moved to what is now my home town. My mother and her five sisters were born there. Aunt Gertie, in fact, died in the same room in which she was born, 90 years before.
Yesterday there was nothing in its place.
We were a large, close-knit family, and I spent as much time at Grandma and Grandpa’s house as I did at home. We lived only a few blocks apart, which made for convenient baby-sitting at all times.
The house was on a big lot, so there were a chicken coop, red and black raspberries, Concord grapes and white grapes, a pear tree, catalpa tree, and hosts and hosts of flowers. Later there were lovely dogwoods and bright flowering shrubs.
All gone.
One by one everybody died until there was only Aunt Joan, whose health required that she be moved to an apartment. She needed the money, so we sold the house. And for two years it sat there empty.
A few days before yesterday it was still there, dogwoods and all. But yesterday it was gone. In fact, it was so gone, my eye couldn’t process the information: it kept telling me that the house next door–which really doesn’t look anything like it–was Grandpa’s house with some kind of shell glued on to it. We had to go back again and stop the car. Then I saw that there is now an empty space where a big chunk of my life used to be, all raw earth and bulldozers. No trace left of the dogwoods.
Gone as if it had never been. Gone as if I’d dreamed it. If I live long enough, my memories of it will grow less sharp and accurate, get muddled up with memories of other places, other things, and it really will be a place that never actually existed.
So another place of beauty is ripped out of the world, to be replaced by a parking lot, law offices, nail salon, or whatever. Almost a hundred Christmases were celebrated in that house. No more; nevermore. The Orcs come with their bulldozer and Mordor captures another little piece of our reality.
But if you don’t walk by faith, you wind up unable to walk at all. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2) We shall come to that place by and by, and He that prepared it for us shall make all things new.
Except for all that Orc-stuff.
I am so sorry! That just makes me heart-sick. : ( I know there are some who can detatch themselves from sentiment and think of that lot as just a raw chunk of land to be developed. But I am not one of them. I love the old things; the keepers of memory and history, and forgotten people and places. That inner longing for what has been lost is part of what draws me to fantasy and to genealogy research. I hope you still have a few pictures or keepsakes to help you remember, even if all the rest of the world forgets.
IT IS A SHAME. It must be kind of like when my childhood home; that of my maternal grandmother; was sold, and shortly after, burned to the ground. That 120 acres will never be the same again, and no matter what they built on it, it could never be as wonderful.
So sorry to hear that Lee. It must be hard for you.
My grandparents on my father side lived in a small village called New Lanark. This became a listed village. My grandparents building cannot be pulled done but until they find the money to fix it up it is only a hallow shell.
O how I know what your venting means, it is far far to depressing to go back to old time locations of life only to see changes that leave emptiness and loss to memories only precious to ourselves as most have departed and few remain. Loved the article, touched my heart, sincerely, Don.
Thank you, Don–and you are the winner of my Comment Contest. You’ve won a signed copy of one of my books, so pick the one you’d like to receive (click “Books”), and let me know. I will also need to know your mailing address, so email it to me at leeduigon@verizon.net .
I didn’t know my great-grandparents very well; Great Papa died when I was tiny, and GG died when I was six or seven. But I do have some very vivid and fond memories of going to their house for Easter Egg hunts. They had an old house, I don’t know how old, with a large piece of land. It was always fun to roam around there; it had a really vintage feel to it that I loved even at that young age.
The family sold it a few years back and now there’s nothing there. The house is gone. The trimmed and well-kept azalea bushes have gone wild and everything is like a jungle. It makes me sad every time I think about it. And of course, my dad has a lot more memories of it; he went there almost every Sunday with his parents for years.
I hate it when history is destroyed, even if it’s something that isn’t ‘worth much’ in the eyes of some people 🙁
That story certainly brings back a lot of memories from back when. Thanks