Comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to say goodbye to your childhood home.  It was time to put  my parents’ house up for sale since Dad has passed away and Mom is in assisted living near me. The Home of Bob and Alice will be changing hands. At first I had no interest in knowing anything about the people who were buying my family home, but when I came to find out they had a child who is about the same age I was when we moved in I started to feel a little bit better about handing over the keys. Another family will now get to make more memories in our house.

How do you say goodbye to a house that you have known for 60 years? Believe me, it is not easy. First of all I had to get my  head around the fact that my brother and I were making all decisions on the house for my mother. I had to get over feeling that I was invading her privacy and I wanted us to do everything the way I thought she would like it to be. I think we did a good job. My brother was outstanding as point man and organizing it all and the official get-it-out-to-the-curb-for-garbage-pick-up man!! He and my sister-in-law were there for every garbage pick up and more.

We sold the house rather quickly which meant we had to really hustle to get it cleared out.  What to keep?  Who wanted what? What to donate? Of course I have a hard time giving away anything that  “has meaning”.  This translated to every piece of art, every piece of silver, every piece of china and forget about the number of photographs!! We decided that in the interest of time I would pack up a lot of what I wanted to go through and bring it back to our house. That way no one had to hear me saying “wow, look at this” over and over. The easiest way to take care of photographs was to fill a couple of suitcases and cartons and just put them in the car. Of course, our den now looks like a storage unit, but winter is coming and there will be time to get it all organized.  I am now doing some redecorating to accommodate a lot of paintings that were in their home. My brother took ones he was interested in having, and I took everything else! Some of the silver pieces I now own can be used the next time royalty visits.  But what treasures they are!!

Packing up all of this stuff brought back so many wonderful memories of my parents entertaining over the years. There was a bar in the playroom that witnessed many, many parties. Looking at the silver pieces I was thinking about the dinner parties and Sunday dinners with flaming Cherries Jubilee!!  Mom and Dad both enjoyed nice dinners and entertaining.

Going through my mother’s handbag collection was really fun for me.  I now have many additions to my collection. The shapes and sizes of many of these bags are right up there with what is being shown today. Many are in really good condition.  Since we both share a love of handbags she too has lots of them! There is a small metallic evening bag that has a built-in cigarette case and lipstick holder!   I hate to think of smoking as glamorous, but can you just picture an evening bag being opened and there are your cigarettes?

The hardest thing for me was seeing all of the notes and cards that both of my parents saved for so many years. The love that the two of them shared was palpable. Such beautiful notes to each other. I am happy to say that I now have this kind of love too and it is evident that my brother and his wife do too.

Now that is it all done we can laugh about some of the stuff we saw.  There were 12 bottles of cinnamon in the spice cabinet.  I guess they would need it for something and standing in  the store would say “do we have any cinnamon?”  And then there were the many years of cancelled checks that Dad saved very neatly and well organized  for who knows what. But, it was their house!!

On the last day I was there I took more pictures and kept saying to myself  “a house is not a home”. Home is where you and your family are.  It is true that home is where your heart is. I am so grateful that there was so much love in that house when it was my home.