Abandoned

I’m meant to be leaving. I plan to deliver food to my friend’s family as they sit vigil over their dying mother. I plan to visit my aunt in Winter Haven; there are just so many summers. And just so many springs – we have to spend time with our loved ones when we can. I plan to drop off a key to my brother’s house in Winter Haven to the man who will be doing some repairs.

Here I am, though, in my own home, windows open to the humid, warm air. I’m listening to silence punctuated by the delicate sound of wind chimes dancing on the breeze, traffic on the distant interstate, Sandhill cranes calling; the ceiling fan steadily spinning. I had to sit and write a few moments before I go to my tasks. Home has been on my mind – home, our abandoned childhood home, laying in cold, darkness, the basement filled with water from a burst pipe; the foundation probably compromised, because the mortar holding the giant stones the foundation stands on is melting in that giant puddle of water. The backyard pool, always so beautiful, even with snow covering it; the promise of summer lay waiting; now half filled with muddy, dirty snow and water; the lining ripped and torn.

I drive by abandoned, crumbling, falling down houses all the time, and I can imagine the stories those walls could tell. They break my heart, those sad lonely houses. I imagine that someone walked out that door for the last time, leaving all the memories stored in those walls behind. We did that this past fall; how can that be? How can it be that we cannot keep it AND our own homes, too? Our home since we were pre-teens closed up, lonely, yet full of a lifetime of memories both good and bad; life, death, laughter, tears – joy, sorrow. That beautiful, stately home, deteriorating day by day since it was rebuilt and reimagined 45 years ago. That beautiful stately home, originally built back in the turn of the 20^th century, surviving the fire that swept through the village so long ago. That home lovingly cared for, now lying so silent and still. Years of porch sitting, years of old windows open to spring and summer breezes. Years of lives lived, dreams dreamed. Years, more recently, of mom’s quiet, lonely days.

Abandoned homes break my heart. At some point, someone was the last person to turn the key in the lock and walk away from that place of life, of memories of secrets. This time, it was our task to take on. My heart is filled with sorrow.