Homeward Bound

Peony by Caroline Fernandes

The time has come to head to to my childhood home for the very last time. It has been sold. I have never given up anything that I love so much. But, it's time. It's time to gather with my four siblings, and divide up the contents, and say so long to a very well loved, gem of a home.

You know how we all have expectations about how something is going to be before we do it? Well, I am trying not to do that. 

However,

I don't want it to be this miserable time.

I want it to be a celebration.

Not a funeral.

I want it to be a sibling love fest (Uh oh... I said it...this might be an undelivered expectation).

I want it to be, as my sister-in-law Bonnie has said, "love soup".

I don't want all of us bickering over who got what and hurt feelings over what someone didn't get.

Nope.

Truthfully,

I kind of dread it.

In a way, at least some of it.

I don't even know what I want from the house anyway.

Sometimes belongings just seem so ridiculous. Half the beauty of anything there is that it has resided in this little oasis with everything else for the last 41 years. Like how peanut butter and jelly go together.

My mom isn't even there anymore preparing a nice lunch to have out on the deck. There is no longer a stash of wine in the cellar. So much of the house has already been fractured when she moved out 3 months ago with her most prized possessions.

And what's even worse: the memories are almost done being made.

Evening sky from the yard.

Luckily though,

we still

very much

have her.