Farewell to a Beloved House

Farewell to a beloved house March 26 2010


The house echoes in my heart and soul,

Its hollow void so strange --

Our life force draining from it,

As I prepare to move.



I pack up our mementos,

Take the kitty’s gravestone – our memorial,

Though his molecules stay here,

Woven into soil and garden ground.



Our molecules, also, yours and mine,

And memories of life and love together,

Stay bonded to the windows, doors, and walls,

Within this dwelling

Where we toiled to bring forth beauty,

Where our love and friendship blossomed –

Where we lived and where you died.



The house will ring again with love and laughter,

As a new family’s love mingles with what we’ve left.

In places where we go on earth, we blend,

Imprinting as we are imprinted – exchanging ever transient matter,

Bonding strongly, sharing life and love.



Reflection:

I’m sitting in my usual chair, in the kitchen nook, looking out on lovely spring as she greens, softens, paints with pastel hues. The familiar squirrel scampers up and down the bush outside the window. A cardinal alights, peering through the glass to find my accustomed silhouette, framed by the arms and headrest of the dark brown leather recliner that’s my writing place. Ellen and I moved into this house exactly 4 years ago – April, 2006.

As I contemplate the contentment of sitting in a familiar chair, meditating, I'm thinking also of Ellen’s beloved Eames chair, the one that broke last Fall. After attempted repairs by three different shops, it may be coming home again this week or next – but I won’t live here any more by next week. It apparently won’t ever come back home to where it served as her beloved nest. Earthly nests are, by nature, transitory, though they bring us much contentment while we have them.

I needed to move, of course. Apparently, just after we had moved in, Ellen told her sister that this house was too big for us both. She never said anything to me about that thought. But I certainly, on my own, don’t need a house this big; it takes a lot of energy, money, and time to keep it up. I have found a sweet cottage near my new love, and am looking forward to our living near each other, as we build our lives together.

I’m looking forward to fixing up that house for me, individually – something I’ve never had a chance to do before. I learned a lot from Ellen about how to do this, of course. She left firm imprints of her esthetic vision on each house where I knew her – the loft on 13th street, the wonderful house in Berkeley that she designed and created,  right from the studs, and this lovely, sprawling ranch house in Chapel Hill, where walls, bathrooms, and windows will carry forth the beauty of her (then my) design sense expressed concretely in a dwelling space. The next house will not carry her imprint, only mine. This is the end of a story.

I can’t help the tears that flow as I say good-bye to this beloved place, honoring our past love and her memory. Beneath the sadness, I also feel joy to have a new life under construction; I feel enormous gratitude for all that I learned with and from Ellen, my Bubbele, and for the love she shared with me so generously, to enable me to move forward in a promising and positive direction.

Daffodils and camellias are blooming in the yard at the new house where I’ll be moving in a few days – promising a bright future.