Think on This

By Sandy Long

Farewell to a family home

My mom will cry when she reads this column. Probably my dad will, too. Maybe even my three sisters, whose lives transpired inside that big brick beauty draped in ivy. You don’t live in a house for decades without becoming, well, attached.

Were it possible, we might have uprooted the old girl and taken her with us. How many homes these days boast closet doors of solid wood, a second story sunroom nestled into the arms of an old maple tree, a circuitous stairway feeding three stories and 12 rooms, perfect for chasing screeching sisters? There was even a communication system of metal pipes built into the walls, probably installed by the doctor who practiced there prior to our purchase.

The house was within walking distance of most things sought by a family—elementary and high school, churches and parks, pharmacy and food store, gas station and coffee shop—and set into a yard large enough for an organic garden, mature apple trees and monstrous maples. Within its walls was abundant creation—stained glass art, paintings, poetry, knitted and sewn items and jewelry. There was song and dance, as family members played piano, guitar, violin, clarinet, flute, French horn, even bass and trombone. Together, we made music.

Of course, the finest home is but a shell if its inhabitants fail one another. The real story here is about a family grown on love and committed to one another. We argued, we disagreed, but we stuck together through illness, a recession and a flood that filled our home with enough water to ruin the beds and furniture on the second floor.

The Susquehanna River coursed about four blocks away and I visited it daily, walking my dog, observing the exotic foliage along the river’s edge, photographing sunsets where water and sky were one huge palette. Drawn to this profusion of wildness, away from the houses and their inhabitants, I became aware of a need to live near forest and water.

My parents planted this seed early, taking us to a Pocono cabin buried in the woods, hiking wild terrain, building campfires and singing under the stars, listening to rain pelt the cabin’s roof without the presence of a single car disrupting this world of natural sound. They always dreamed of building a log cabin in the country and waited a long time, finally returning to a rural area near my mother’s family home.

Log by log, daughters and friends helped raise this new home into the sky. Two stories and quite a few less rooms, a view across marshland that regularly fills with mist, a swampy path to a slender river where my parents enjoy their evening coffee—it is here that we help them carve a new life as a for sale sign is posted in the yard of their old home.

Someone will choose our old family home to be their new one. To the eventual owners, I would say: Use it hard; tend it lovingly. The wood is solid, the structure sound. When the apple trees bloom, throw a blanket down and let the petals rain across you. If you have children, read Dr. Seuss books together; let them whisper and giggle in their rooms past bedtime. Get a garden going and show your child the miracle of seeds, sun and harvest.

I’ve since moved on to a tiny home. Its closet doors are hollow; there are no stairs to climb to a second story. But just outside the kitchen door is an organic garden and paths of bluestone winding into the forest. A stream trickles in a corner of the yard, hemlocks, spruce and oaks stud the property and a grove of mountain laurel explodes across the hill behind the house. Hummingbirds nest here, perching on the clothesline. Black bears and white-tailed deer make appearances. And the other day, I noticed twigs and fuzz protruding from the weathered wood of a birdhouse I placed by the shed last year. Unexplainably, my heart leapt to know that something had chosen to make my proffered home, theirs.