What is Home?

My mom and I chatted this time last week, and she dropped an interesting piece of news on me: my dad is closing a sale on a new house. He cancelled a trip to Phoenix to visit my brother early next month, apparently, because he and Anne need to prepare for putting the current house on the market.

I feel very weird about this. I understand that things change. I understand that the house is a lot to maintain, and that my dad's getting older and less able to do that care. But I feel sadness and an odd twinge of regret. He's selling the house I grew up in. From age 6 months until I graduated from college, that house was home. Since then, of course, Boston (and now Providence) have transitioned into "home" for me. My lack of moving during childhood, though, has kept that quiet little constant in my life. The house in Billings was always there. It would always be there.

I guess in a lot of ways, I just feel irritated that the Christmas From Hell (!) was in reality the last time I'd be there. Maybe somewhere deep inside, I just knew that things had completely changed. The house definitely wasn't home anymore. Anne seems to have consciously made sure of THAT.

Anyway... I haven't talked to my dad. I've left messages for him since mid-January, but can't seem to pin him down. Some of the contact is practical now- there's a bunch of stuff of mine that's at the house. He doesn't need to deal with that... I'm happy to. But I need to arrange to get stuff shipped to me because there's no way I can get out to Billings in the next few months. And some of the stuff, like my Victorian dollhouse, I'd honestly like to have here. It can't come home on a plane-- it needs to be shipped via truck freight. Might as well put everything in freight and ship it here so I can sort through it, see what I want to keep, donate, throw out, or sell at our impending yard sales.

Mom just kept saying "I can't believe your father is selling that house. He loves that house."

Well, yeah... I think he does. I mean, hell-- he's lived there now for just shy of 31 years. But my dad is closing in on 63 with two really bad knees and high blood pressure. I think he's at the point where he simply can't care for a 3,300 square foot, 5-bedroom, 2-story house with nearly an acre of fully landscaped yard & pool. With his constant need-to-be-busy personal ethics, he's probably getting resentful that he can't maintain it like he used to. My dad retired from obstetrics last year. I honestly don't know if he's doing full-time gyn work anymore (I doubt it). Granted, the lack of obstetrics has slashed his malpractice insurance down dramatically... but it's also cut down his income a ton, too. And I got the distinct impression from Anne that she wanted to move into a new house. I know they don't need all of that work anymore, and I'm sure they don't want it anymore. I can completely understand why they're moving to something smaller (a ranch, from what I understand). I do think it's a good idea.

Still, it's the loss of my childhood home that makes me a bit sad. It's one of those last bits of childhood memory that has stayed constant. Perhaps part of me thought my dad would die in that house.

Then again, I never thought that I'd essentially be "the old family" to my father, either. Perhaps that's what I still mourn more...