Sometimes a house is not just a commodity.
Sometimes, selling a house is about more than just selling a house. Sometimes a house is your parent’s home. Sometimes a house represents way more than just the price tag or the neighbourhood or the commission. Sometimes selling a house is selling the place where you last saw your mother sit in an armchair and watch TV. Sometimes selling a house is selling the place where your nephews opened their Christmas presents with frenetic glee. Maybe the last time you walked through your family home you took Shantaram off the bookshelf and you don’t want to finish reading it because it will be the last book you took from your mother’s house before she died. Yes, my mother died this year and I realized that selling a house is easier than selling a home.
Me… I think when your mother dies, you join a club.
I am in this club. I just joined it this year. It’s a club I never wanted to be in… But you don’t get a choice. I hear in conversations people complaining about their mothers, and I find myself desperately wishing that I could talk to mine one more time. I cry now, at the drop of a hat just thinking about her. Of all my brothers and sisters, I wasn’t the closest to her.
But…
I find myself wanting to call her. Then I remember that I never can again. I am closer to my sisters than ever before, so now I want to call them if I am sad. Mom dying sadness is so weird and lonely. She created you in this little sac of ocean in her body and even if you are mad at her, you still miss her and love her and want to just sit in a room with her as she does things to annoy you. My littlest sister made us all quilts from her favourite clothes… It’s weird, but I love it for so many reasons. So, when I see your posts about your mothers being gone, know that I am in your club. I feel that ache and I would wrap my arms around you.
… Or just sit on chairs somewhere and hear stories of the things she did that made you laugh. The last thing my mom said to me was, “You’re so funny, Nickie.” The last thing she said to my sister was, “Why is it taking me so long to die ?” The last thing she said to my youngest sister was, “Oh, I know this hand.” Oh, mom… I am in this club.
I read somewhere once,
“Put your hands over your face and measure the colour of days around your mothers death.
I am measuring.
The colours are white butterflies.
They are always around doing flyby’s.”
So… Sometimes real estate is about more than a house. Real estate is about selling a home filled with BBQs and your grandfather’s paintings and places where you held your Mother’s hand for the last time. Sometimes real estate is too
close to you to sell.
This is my favourite picture of my mother because she
seems so happy.
Maybe a house is a house and you can sell it, but a home… that is a mother.
