At 55, I am finally leaving home.
But in walking through my now-empty house one last time, I might as well be 5, sitting on the speckled linoleum-tile floor of my playroom nook at the base of the back staircase, playing Barbies. Or 10, standing on a sturdy pine footstool at our Formica kitchen counter, cracking open the hazelnuts my Czech mom will bake into my favorite Christmas cookies. Or 15, spinning and waltz-jumping across the early winter black ice on the pond behind my house.
I was only 3 when I moved in with my parents and my older sister and brother. It was 1963, and the term “teardown’’ had yet to be coined. But our new house had indeed replaced a teardown. In that humble house’s place arose our 2,541-square-foot thoroughly modern split-level with sweeping water views, four bedrooms, three full baths, and two sleek wall-to-wall-slate fireplace surrounds. At more than twice the size and acreage of most of the ranches, Capes, and Colonials in our established middle-class neighborhood, our house was BIG.
Apparently its builder had thought so, too; he installed a whole-house intercom system. My mother disagreed. She preferred the tried-and-true method of yelling. So that silly intercom just became a plaything for me and my friends as we ran from room to room chanting versions of “Can you hear me, now?’’ into its 6-by-8-inch wall speakers. Soon, but probably not soon enough for my mom, the intercom broke. And it stayed broken.
In the decades that followed, it acquired a lot of company as the house and its contents aged into decline alongside its owners. My parents were not the sort to throw out anything.
No wonder, then, that for the past nine months — nine months exactly from when my 91-year-old mom died and left me to clean out 52 years of “waste not, want not’’ accumulation — my childhood home has been a living, breathing time capsule. As I sorted everything into “save,’’ “sell,’’ “donate,’’ or “toss,’’ my emotions followed suit. I was so happy to discover the post-World War II love letters my parents had written to each other across an ocean. But sadness paused my purge of broken things when I again held the wall phone receiver that had transmitted the news of my sister’s sudden death on her 30th birthday. And I actually laughed out loud when I read the tiny handwritten note pinned to a half-finished piece of exquisite petit point embroidery my mom had stuffed into a reused plastic produce bag: “I started, you finish!’’
It’s so like my mom to be telling me what to do, even now.
As I pull the front door closed behind me, I smile, thinking about the mom, dad, and two young children who are moving in soon. They plan to restore the house, unlike the builder who made me a backup offer. He would have replaced it with one more than twice its size. Honestly, I would have been fine either way.
This is what makes me smile as I leave home for the very last time: The buyer’s agent told my realtor that the mom who’s moving in is of Czech descent. I’m not at all surprised. I’m sure my mother had a hand in finding her.
Edie Ravenelle is a writer and editor who lives west of Boston. Send comments to eravenelle@comcast.net and a 550-word essay on your first home to Address@globe.com. Please note: We do not respond to submissions we won’t pursue.
