12/28/2022 0 Comments In the house in a heartbeat piano![]() It reverberated the sound of Dad’s favorite Van Morrison songs. I flew in from California frequently and the house didn’t let us down, it pulled us in and made us feel safe when we were so scared we couldn’t think straight. We clung to each other and to our constant - the house. The memories created there took on more profound meaning than ever before after my Dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2010. A whirlwind of moments from those 10 years would reveal late nights musing over a favorite song ( “now listen closely to this part”), wine in hand or Christmas mornings, when my Dad would play the same song every year as we gathered around the tree to open gifts (Johnny Mathis’ “Sleigh Ride”), the smell of Mom’s egg strata in the oven or the New Year’s Day we all jumped in the hot tub in our pajamas. Friends always felt welcome like it was their own home, and treated it as such. This was never, in a sense of living, my home.īut in the sense of soul, this was my home through and through. I got hired to work for a newspaper in California and started two weeks after graduation. Construction completed while I was in college, and throughout my four years just two hours away I’d never spent more than a month or two there at a time (summer breaks, etc.). ![]() I never truly “lived” in this home like my younger sister and brother did. Cantera stone was brought in from Mexico, vaulted ceilings were employed to showcase the cacti-speckled mountains seemingly within arm’s reach of the backyard, lighting throughout evoked a cheery feeling at daytime and a cozy vibe at night. They picked out every nuance of this house together down to the light switches. Then, my Mom and Dad bought a lot up the street, and built their next house - the one rich with memories. There’s the house where I spent ages 2-12 in Indiana, and the house we originally moved to in Arizona where we lived for seven years. In fact, there are two memorable homes that came before this sacred one in question. I’ve left old apartments behind before, and while I was sad to leave certain aspects ( this balcony was the best!) or bemused with some observations ( it looks so much bigger in here without my furniture), I never anticipated the mourning that ensued when we began the process of selling my parents’ home in Arizona. We say that it’s the memories and people that make a home, not the things in it or the structure itself, yet when we’re forced to leave a treasured home behind, it doesn’t merely tug at the heartstrings - it damn near severs them. ![]() The memories we make there, bit by bit, laugh by laugh, with some heartache thrown in for good measure, make it seem inconceivable to ever abandon the house itself. In some homes, the soul of the space has been lovingly crafted over time.
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