My friend Cheryl and her siblings hosted an estate sale today at their parents’ home. Their mother passed away last year and their father is now in assisted living suffering from dementia.
They’ve worked diligently for months getting their parents’ house–the house most of them grew up in–ready for resale. A big part of the process was the estate sale happening this weekend; they hoped to sell enough of the items to make it easier to get the house on the market.
Walking into the house today flooded my mind with memories.
Walking into the downstairs door I remembered the many Halloween parties Cheryl hosted for our close group of friends in high school and college. Cheryl’s younger brother remembered the parties when I mentioned them, and then laughingly showed me a piece of tape and a small sliver of crepe paper stuck in the corner of the basement room.
“That’s been there since one of those Halloween parties,” he said. “We never got to it, until we moved some of this furniture.”
That small piece of celebratory paper had stuck to the ceiling since at least 1987. I shook my head, glad that it had never been cleared from the spot.
Walking upstairs into the den I remembered the many afternoons watching Alabama football games with Cheryl and her family. There was the time that our friend Carol (an avid Auburn fan) stormed out of the den after Van Tiffin kicked a 53-yard field goal to give the Tide a victory back in 1985; she threw her orange-and-blue shaker onto the floor, left the room without saying a word, and drove off to her own home.
That same room hosted birthday parties and double dates, and numerous conversations with Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs. I loved visiting them, because they were so different than my own parents; their “Yankee” sensibilities were different than Mom and Dad’s Southern ones, and besides they loved to host parties and serve cocktails and smoke pipes.
I could almost smell Mr. Jacobs’ pipe there today in the room.
Walking onto the upstairs covered deck I remembered the time our group decided to stay up for 24 hours (apparently, if I remember correctly, because “we could”; there was no great reason why, but none of us had seen the sun rise after being up all night).
We made it easily until about 2 a.m., and then reverted to doing home videos (way before Tik Tok), playing Truth or Dare, watching movies (on VHS, of course), playing games, and laughing a whole lot.
We saw the sun rise right there on the covered deck, the foggy light seeping into the window over the lake outside.
As I walked through all of the rooms in the house, those memories came streaming back.
And I realized at that moment how weak my memories were compared to those of Cheryl and her sister and brothers.
Cheryl told me that the entire experience was very emotional. Before opening the sale, they circled up in the kitchen, held hands, and prayed.
The memories of their parents were potent, and they prayed that they’d do them justice.
I watched the way they treated the items that belonged in their family for so many years and the way they talked almost reverently to customers about the items being bought. I could feel the camaraderie between them all, as they watched strangers take part of their pasts away from the home.
I admired them, and prayed that someday I could do it as well.
As I left the house I took a quick picture with Cheryl and Carol on that deck, and then I snapped another one of the outside of the house since it would assuredly be the last time I’d be there.
They say that there’s “no place like home,” and how grateful I am that “home” isn’t just our own. It’s the other places that we’re lucky enough to be invited into as children, or teenagers, or young adults.
Thanks, Cheryl, for inviting me into yours.