Storytime: When home is no longer a house

I followed her, the wheels of her walker echoing throughout the house.

My 91-year-old mother flitted from room to room like Barbie in her dream home. The bathrooms were clean, the floors were mopped, and the furniture was gone.

My mother’s house is no longer her home.

She became sick, admitted first to the hospital, then into a nursing home, and finally assisted living. With each transition, Mom told everyone she saw that she just wanted to go home.

Now here she was.

My mother aged well; her earrings sparkle, her white hair shines, and her red lipstick says the rest. Mom slowly adjusted to her new living quarters with chef-cooked meals and friends to sit with on the patio.

Still, she wanted to go home.

When I first took her, I could tell she was conflicted. The house was dusty and felt empty, even though it was full. My mother sat in her favorite chair, looked out the window, and then back at me.

“It’s time to sell the house,” she said.

That meant everything had to be emptied and examined. Linen closets, storage closets and that one closet everyone forgot. Drawers full of serving dishes and serving spoons, cabinets hiding glassware and silverware.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” my mother said as she watched me go through her life.

The forgotten closet offered old scrapbooks of past adventures and yellowed photos of past lives. I’d bring them to Mom so she could sit and relive history. Some of the faces in the stiff photographs my mother recognized, but so many others went unnamed and unwanted because nothing was recorded on the back.

Let this be a lesson to you.

Slowly, slowly the house was sorted and, with each item, another story would emerge. When everything was organized, I brought Mom back to finger old Christmas decorations and tables of dusty trinkets.

Tables full of memories.

We relived them all and, more than once, I saw Mom brushing tears from her cheeks. I was not immune to the fact that I was going through my mother’s life; I felt it with everything I touched, everything I cleaned, everything I threw away.

I was not prepared for this.

Faces appeared that I remembered from my childhood and familiar items popped up like ghosts from my past. The old flour sifter my mother used and her forgotten sewing box. Sweet love letters, faded journals, and my mother’s handwriting when it was strong and sure. Photos of my Dad on the patio, holding a margarita; his coat still in the closet, waiting. My grandmother’s quilt, my aunt’s art, and hundreds of pictures of grandchildren.

What a life.

One last time, I took Mom back to the now-empty house and watched her walk around in the emptiness. Time stood still as I remembered all the joy and all the tears within those walls.

There was the place I slept beside my father the night before he died, the room I sat beside him until the coroner arrived. There was the spot in the kitchen where my mother mashed potatoes, and the pantry where she hid all the good stuff. The dining room where we dined, the living room where we lived, and Mom’s bedroom that she loved, now hollow.

Nothing left but the memories.

I took a deep breath when I locked the door that final time, taking my mother and those memories back to her new home that is not a house. My heart was heavy, and I could only imagine how my mother felt to close this chapter of her life. She must have read my mind because Mom turned to me and smiled like she had won the lottery.

“It’s OK,” Mom said, looking back one last time at the home that was no longer hers.

“I want you to know that I would do it all again. All of it.”

Then, she reached for me as I selfishly fell apart.

You can reach Lorry at [email protected].