We are the second owners of our house. The first owners were my Great Aunt and Great Uncle.
I used to come here as a child. I used to visit my Great Aunt when she was older.
My Great Aunt was almost a hoarder; there was wall to wall "stuff" when she was here. Then she had to go into a nursing home, and Mom and Dad set to the task of sorting though the stuff.
In that time, Hubby wasn't Hubby yet, but had decided to move to my area. My Great Aunt's son offered to sell him the house. He said yes.
The house was sorted, emptied, and overhauled. Carpets ripped up, everything got a fresh coat of paint, curtains were opened for the first time in years. Then we moved in.
The house looks nothing like it used to. I've worked hard to make it home. It's calm. It's comfortable. And sometimes it's a little strange, living here.
Sometimes I'll have these little flashes, little moments, where it still seems like my Great Aunt's house. Every once in awhile... while I'm walking down the basement steps, while I'm coming in the back door. I'll have this odd moment where I feel like, if I turn around, the house will look the way it used to look when it was theirs, not ours.
It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. And when it does, I wonder if it's my Great Aunt. When she went in the nursing home, she never came back to her house. I don't think she was even told that it was sold. And now that she's left this existence and gone on to another, I wonder how she feels about that. Is she angry that the house isn't hers anymore? Is she glad that I live here, and not some strangers? I don't think she's haunting me or anything like that. You know how sometimes you'll drive by a place that you used to spend a lot of time, like the house of a friend from elementary school or the place you used to work when it was an ice cream parlor, and you'll think "wow, I used to spend a lot of time there" and you'll kind of sigh and go on with your day? It feel like maybe my Great Aunt does that sometimes. It doesn't worry me, or scare me, or anything like that.
I just hope she approves of what we've done with the place.
3 comments:
I can guarantee you that she approves. In her later years, she used to talk about how she wanted more for that house, but would never let me do anything more than clean it for her and she wasn't always to keen on that.
I'm sure she would be THRILLED that you're living there, loving that house.
(Good thing things worked out with you and "not yet Hubby", eh? That might have been... awkward.)
;)
I wonder about the family that lives in my old house. And there is still an attachment there even though it has been years.
I love the fact that you have that connection, those old memories, in the place that you live and I am sure that your aunt would love what you have done to the place.
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