A Bittersweet Homecoming

It's never easy to say goodbye. Whether it's a person or something that holds sentimental value, no one likes letting go. So when my parents told me a couple years ago they were thinking about selling the house I grew up in, it felt a bit like a punch in the gut at first. When it was built back in 1973, it was the perfect place to raise a young and still growing family. I wouldn't come along for another 6 years, and for the first 18 years of my life, and a brief stint after college, it was the only home I knew.

I think the realization that they needed to downsize into something more manageable came around the time my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It was a blow to all of us, but at the same time, I think it brought our family together. My siblings and I knew it was time for us to give our parents a helping hand, just as they had so many times for us growing up. What had been a hard pill to swallow at first blush, turned quickly into a call for action. And so we set about trying to get the old place standing tall, quite methodically I might add, readying it for sale and contemplating just what the next step would be.

It wasn't until this spring that we'd be ready to think about putting it up for sale. After much handwringing, when my parent's finally met with a realtor, they marveled at what they saw as a gem in a very sluggish market. After nearly 4 decades in this place, they ended up listing it with the same agency that had originally sold them the house, and in some ways it brought some comfort that we were coming full circle.

When they made the listing official and I looked at the description and the photos, and ultimately the asking price, it was more than a bit surreal. It all looked good, and I felt anyone who were to see it would certainly want to give the place a look. At the same time it felt odd to quantify the value and parameters of this place that held so many memories for me, and for all of us. It was more than a 4 bedroom colonial. It was the place where I learned to dribble a basketball, played hide and seek with the neighborhood kids and where I returned each night to crowd around our kitchen table with my parents and 6 other siblings for dinner. It was home. Our home. And to think of putting a price on that and allowing some stranger to bid on something that was a part of our history, why it was unthinkable. But then the rational adult mind takes over and with a smile, I said to myself, "someone is really going to love this place just as much as we did".

Just a week or so later that person came along and I believe she saw in it just what we had come to know over the last 30 plus years. Less than two weeks after it went on the market, it was sold, and much to our relief at a fair price.

My parents had been thinking about what would be next for them, as we all had for quite some time. In the end, they decided to build a much smaller and more modest home, just around the corner from their current residence in a rather new development, that for my entire childhood had been just a barren field. Just as when they moved into 105 Pamela Lane, they will be only the second house on a new street, aptly named Brentwood Lane, the same name their current street once had before it was renamed.



On a drizzly, grey morning last week, I met my parents, along with two of my sisters and some of their kids at the site of the new abode. With the old house sold it was time to break ground on the new one. They make quite a big deal of these things, making a party out of the event, which includes the usual breakfast fare of bagels, donuts, coffee, and of course, what celebration would be complete without a bit of champagne?

The backhoe made quick work of the basement as we walked about muddy layout that was only an outline in bright orange spray paint on the dirt. We surveyed the area, and I reflected on how much has changed since we had ridden on bikes through there some 20 years before.

As the crew broke for a minute, the foreman of the team beckoned to my parents and suggested a photo op with the heavy equipment to commemorate the moment. As my mom gingerly climbed onto the the large steel treads and into the cab of the backhoe, my dad struck a pose just beside her. As always, I was ready with my camera to snap a few shots.


As hard as it had been to think of saying goodbye to the place I'd called home for so many years, any sadness was immediately wiped away by the smiles on my dear parent's faces. I know for them, this was a relief. They didn't relish the thought of relinquishing those precious ties to the past any more than I did. But I suppose as we all grow older, and things become less and less certain, it's a good feeling to make a decision and see the progress that it produces. In this world, there is nothing that will last forever, whether it's made of flesh and blood, or rafters and beams. We must savor each precious moment in the present, and try never to look back with regret. As for my parents, I'm happy to have helped to make this process just a bit easier and I look forward to future family gatherings in their new home. To be honest, it's a bit of a relief for me too, just to know that as they grow older, they have one less worry, and a great many blessings to be thankful for.

Striking A Balance

It's difficult these days to disconnect oneself from the myriad of distractions that keep us from focusing on our own well being, and on the things that really matter in life. It used to be that if people needed to reach you, they could call your home, or gasp, they might actually just send correspondence through the mail. Ever watch an old movie and think, if they just had a cell phone, they could warn the protagonist of impending doom?

But that was in the stone ages. Nowadays, I can be reached at my home phone, cell phone, work phone, any number of my multiplying email accounts, facebook, twitter...you get the picture. And there are people who have even more distractions in life than I do. It gets to the point where these modern conveniences that are supposed to make life easier, just end up making it more complicated. In some cases, they are a downright nuissance. ("I have how many emails in my inbox?")

So to truly get away from it all is a challenge, to say the least. Ever since I completed the arduous task of putting together a thesis for my Masters program, I'm still getting used to having my life back after a 3 year hiatus from normalcy. I have to try to remember what exactly normal feels like again. And I'm finding that, like the Thomas Wolfe novel, I can't go home again. The simplicity that once existed in my life, before graduate school and a career, marriage and a mortgage, and all of the things that seem to come with adult life, that is something I will never get back.

The best I can hope for is a week of vacation here and there, maybe juanting off to my tropical paradise in Puerto Rico, or the long overdue visit to my high school friend in Hawaii. And each time I find myself in these idyllic surroundings, I think, why don't I just stay? Do I really need to go back to that other life in that cold, grey place, where actual responsibilities await me? And yet as tempting as it is to never return, return I do. But you know what? As nice as it is to get away, I'm sure someday down the road, I'd find myself swinging in a hammock beneath the palm trees and think, I'm bored. Wonder what the folks back home are up to? Call me crazy, but work is in my blood and I think in some ways it keeps me sane, or at the very least, grounded.

We all have a calling in life and I guess for me, that calling is to be here, at least for now. And while life will inevitably continue to be anything but simple, I know that I have to keep moving forward. I still have much more work to do, as much as I'd like to kick back and take it easy. I'm afraid that once a place is no longer just a temporary escape from our everyday life, it can cease to be paradise. To have a place that I can call home, where I am surrounded by family, friends and all the things that are dear to me in life, this is what puts things in perspective and makes me realize just how blessed I am.

The Importance of Family

It's funny how so often we fail to appreciate something until it's gone. For the last few weeks, my wife Norma's family has been holding a vigil by her grandmother's bedside as she fades in and out of consciousness. At 91 years old, Mami Andrea, as she's affectionately called, has lived a full life, but the day we have all dreaded may be coming soon, when we finally have to say goodbye to her. And so we wait, and we watch over her. We hold her frail hand, we kiss her furrowed brow, caress her long silver hair and care for her as she cared for so many of those who now surround her.

I was fairly young when each of my grandmothers passed away, and I never really had an opportunity to know my grandfathers, so it has been an unusual experience for me. I've never watched someone as they lay dying. It's heart wrenching to see them so helpless, and to watch those left behind who are trying to come to terms with this loss. I hate to see anyone in pain.

It has made me think of my own family. In particular, it has forced me to look at my parents, and face this reality that they will not always be here. Two years ago, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and to say it was a bit of a shock to the system is an understatement. It's not that we didn't know already that something was going on. The symptoms were clear long before the diagnoses. But to give a name to that suspicion was quite devastating. It made that inevitability of death feel that much more real.

In the time that has passed since, each of us have learned to accept these facts, and tried our best to support both my mother and father. In some ways, it is harder for those who live with this person that has been given such a diagnosis, than for the person themselves. I think Dad has accepted it finally, and begun to learn to live with it. His spirits seem high when I see him, though I know this is not always the case.

Having grown up the youngest of seven kids, I was always used to being surrounded by my family growing up, for better or worse. There were certainly times when I wanted them all to leave me alone. But now that we have all grown up and moved on to have families of our own, it's harder and harder to find that togetherness we once had. It's difficult to think about, but I sometimes have considered, how many more times will I have to spend with my mother and father, brothers or sisters before they're gone? When I consider that I see some of them only once a month, a few times a year, or less, it makes me want to drop what I'm doing and organize a family reunion. But realistically, we have to live our lives, wherever that may take us.

I had an opportunity to give my parents their first digital camera this Christmas, with the hope that they might take more photos to preserve the memories that these days are becoming increasingly precious. Whenever I look back at all the old photos, I think of how this record of our past still seems so real to me, like few things in life. It pains me to think of things that have gotten in the way of being together as a family. Distance, career, kids, the responsibilities of daily life and sometimes these little rifts that pop up in every family.

When you look at the frailty of life, and consider how it can be taken from us in a split second, at any time, any place, it forces us to take stock and reconsider our priorities. Now that the holiday season has come and gone, I hope that each of you had an opportunity to get away from the distractions of daily life, even for a few hours, to be with those family and friends that are dear to you. As our lives become busier and there are more of those distractions, hopefully it won't take a holiday or an illness to remind us throughout the year just how precious these people in our lives truly are.