A Pop In of Memories

I am not sure why but the house at 1300 Barnes Drive keeps popping into my mind.  

Maybe it is because of Super Bowl.  We were thinking about what we did last year for Super Bowl Sunday and recalled that we picked up a pizza and some snacks at Buehlers and watched the game downstairs.  We put out the trash for the Monday pick up.  Later in the week we moved Mom from the rehab center to her new home at Chapel Hill in Canal Fulton.  I started going through more things, like the stacks beside her chair and some of the things beside the chair in the dining room.

I checked Zillow the other day and saw that the price on the house had been reduced again.  I am still disappointed that Kylie and her daughters didn't move into the house.  I was hoping that the house would have some life in it again, people to celebrate the holidays, kids to enjoy the backyard and to get on the bus with Faith and Alyssa.  That didn't happen.  The house is still empty.

We haven't been to Wooster since mid-September. I don't miss those monthly trips, but part of me, especially now when we were making monthly trips there and even more after Mom's death in May, misses part of the life there.

I did like Buehlers for shopping.

It was nice to have a variety of restaurants to choose from and for those to be so close to the house.

A movie theatre was close enough that we could go without planning extensively.  Just a 'oh what's playing?"  and "It starts in 20 minutes" so "Lets go!"  

Each trip it seemed like we visited with cousins.  I miss seeing Dale and Karen.  I really enjoyed visiting with Cindy at their house, and the time we met Mike and Kim and Dale and Karen in Canton for dinner was so much fun.

I don't miss Mom.  I don't miss her anger, her bitterness, her lack of love for everyone.  It was good, though that she did not erupt at either Gary or me, not even one time, during any of our visits with her from January until her death in May.  She did know that Lynnlee was expected.  She knew that Owen was still with Hilary and Blaine.  She knew that Landon was playing baseball and loving it.   But underlying it all was the anger she had shown us for so many years.  I don't miss that.  Only one time have I thought I needed to call her and share a piece of news with her. Never have I wished that we could go to see her one more time.  Why?  Because I didn't like to go see her when I had to.  She was angry.  She always found fault in something.  She would accuse us of looking around too much or checking something we shouldn't or prying into places we should not be or whatever she wanted to concoct in her paranoid mind.  No, I don't miss her.
 
I didn't like walking in the house and feeling like I was in a musty dungeon.  It was dark with all of the blinds shut and the curtains closed.  There was a black trash bag over the windows of the front door.  The counters were full of papers and clippings and bottles and dishes.  Foodstuffs were stacked on the floor in the corner of the kitchen.  Papers were stacked in the corner of the dining room behind Mom's chair.  Magazines and more newspapers were stacked around, next to, in front or, and behind Mom's chair in the living room.  The downstairs were covered with cobwebs and dust and more things stacked in piles.  Pictures.  Fabric. Books. More magazine.  The middle bedroom had one path to the chair and even that was very narrow for all of the boxes and stacks of things. 

Now I look at the pictures on Zillow and I am amazed that it is the same house.  Painted paneling.  All of the curtains are down. The carpet has been removed to reveal beautiful hardwood floors.  The kitchen has been gutted and new cabinets installed. The bathroom has been redone.  The blue paper has been removed in the front bedroom.  Every room has been re-painted except maybe the living room.  The carpet downstairs has been replaced.  The green garage door has been replaced by a white one (which looks weird). 

It isn't the same.  And that doesn't bother me.  It needed some updating and if we had been the ones to be moving into that house, we would have done the same things (maybe with different types of cabinets though in the kitchen). 

I guess it is just winter time.  Memories of last winter.  Trying to settle into a retirement routine of sorts.  Missing Dad.  Maybe it is because for a short amount of time I felt like I had a type of home in Wooster, one that I had never had before.  I owned that house (with Greta).  I was part of the neighborhood. People would stop by and say hello.  Melanie kept in touch (and she still does).  For six months that was our 'home away from home' because we were there so much.

The house was sold.  It doesn't belong to our family anymore.  Our connection to Wooster is over except for the two graves in the Wooster Cemetery.

Time to close the door on the memories.