lower the curtain down on Camano Island

I started this two years ago, and put it aside, too consumed with grief to finish it. Then Denise wrote about her grandmother's house, and I felt compelled to go back to it. Its mostly off the cuff, so please forgive my poor writing.

6/25/07

Goodbye, house.

These words were all I had left in my brain as we drove away yesterday. Forty years of memories. My mom's garden, roses still blooming like nothing ever changed. Forty years of family dinners, kids growing up, laughter and arguments. Forty christmases. My dad's veggie garden now just a mass of weeds. The house stands empty now, feels wounded to me. My heart is ripping apart.

Where do I start?

It was a horrible thing we had to do. Imagine 3200 square feet filled with forty years worth of stuff. And trying to disperse with it all in a week. Because of the time involved and the location, being fairly isolated, a garage sale was not a good option. We were lucky and found an "estate specialist" who bought the lot, so to speak, for an agreed upon amount. We thought that was a good thing. But first all kids and grand kids went through and collected the items we wanted. Keep in mind, my mom is still with us, albeit spirited away (against her wishes) into a "retirement community." That's a whole other story I may go into later. At any rate, we got her set up with the things we feel she needs, and are divvying up the rest. I feel like a fucking vulture.

Enter the "estate specialist." They were a really nice family, and they worked their asses off emptying the house. The idea is to sell the stuff later, from their warehouse. I hope them the best. What we didn't count on was, they didn't want everything and when they were done taking what they wanted, we were left with a house still half full of ... stuff. Much of it useful, even valuable. Some of it was what I would consider memorabilia. Others considered it trash. But time had run out and we needed to get rid of it. No time for Salvation Army or the like, and they probably wouldn't have come out anyway considering our location. So we got a 30' dumpster, and proceeded to fill it up. Thank god my mom wasn't there to witness this. And my dad was certainly turning over in his grave. These were people who had lived through the depression, saved and re-used everything they ever owned. It made me physically sick to see the utter waste of it all, all these things - good things - going in the trash. Furniture. Lamps. A huge array of tools. Kitchen utensils. Clothes. A perfectly good walker which we could have donated but ??? Tons of Books. Old dolls. All the stuff we made as kids that my mom saved and had been buried in the storage room for 40 years. I have a vivid image of holding a "book" my brother wrote when he was about seven, and dropping it in the dumpster. I guess it wasn't important to him, but it nearly killed me to not salvage it and I've regretted it ever since. Did I mention my dad's tools? Nobody figured that the estate people wouldn't want them, and by then it was too late. I will be forever haunted by those images.

Two years later it still makes me sick to think about it, so I try not to. But the other day my sister called me up and asked "what ever happened to the.... " and dredged it all up again. She was looking for the old porcelain dolls, who's eyes closed when they were laid down. I don't remember even seeing them that day, but now I grieve their loss.

At the time, I tried to console myself by thinking, another young family will buy the house and it will serve them well, housing another generation of good times and memories. But you know what's really sad? The house is still empty! Someone bought it, but they never moved in. Its like the house itself is grieving for its lost family.