The Summer I Said Goodbye

“A house is made with walls and beams, a home is built with love and dreams” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The theme of home has become quite a touchy subject in my mind the last few years. What does a sense of home feel like? And how does it feel when you lose somebody so tightly bound to it? I have dove into these questions before, but this time instead of focusing on the feeling of home, I am reflecting on the house itself.

And funnily enough, this all started while I was watching the show The Summer I Turned Pretty. Spoiler for anyone who watches this show! In season two, two teenage brothers are trying to hold onto their family summer house after their mom passes away. Another family member has rights to the home and wants to sell it, and they do everything in their power to keep it.

Watching these fictional characters work through their grief triggered something in me. Not the grief for their mom- although that is there too! But their grief for the house.

I have said goodbye to a family summer house and I must tell you, it was a kind of grief that I wasn’t prepared for. Although the details of my situation were way, way different than what Conrad and Jeremiah had to deal with- Aunt Julia that was MESSED up! But the grief was similar, nonetheless.

At the time I felt so silly to be so sad over a house. I just lost my dad, surely I would get over the loss of a summer home? And how can you grieve an inanimate object? We are taught to believe the house doesn’t matter, only the people! When you lose something materially, we are told to stay grateful - these are just things. And I knew that I was grateful, but wasn’t I allowed to grieve it as well? I don’t think it’s as simple as we make it out to be.

It makes things even more complicated when the added layer of grief is mixed in there. This was the place where you and your person made memories. So, it feels like you are losing them- again.

I can (almost) fully stand behind this notion- that it is the people and the love who matter most. My family is everything to me. AND I think there is room to look at this from a different angle. What about the house? The house is the vessel that holds all the memories. Not only did it bear witness to those memories, but it played a part in them. Over time, that house ends up taking on an identity of its own.

That kitchen table where you sat and told countless stories, the games that were played out in that yard, the cookouts that were thrown on that back deck, meals cooked on that stove, the musty smell of the basement, the inside jokes told on that one couch, the walks that you took along that street, the trips to the beach, the silly little quirks that only that house could have, the rhythm of the house as you moved through each day…

When you say goodbye to a house, you grieve in all the ways you would grieve an actual person. You wonder…Did I appreciate it while I had it?  What will my life look like without it? You wish you had more time together, maybe you even fight to keep it. You replay all the highlight reels and you grieve all the memories you will never make inside of it with your loved ones.

The grief of saying goodbye to a house is so real.

It may not have the ability to love you back, but you can’t deny the peace you felt when you walked through the doorway. It was a constant in your life; it was always there for you. This very inanimate object has LIFE to it, because it housed so much LIFE. So, I think it is perfectly okay to miss this vessel we call a house.

The people inside the home are what make those four walls have a heartbeat. But when everybody leaves and you drive away, that house is still standing there, along with all your memories, all your nostalgia. Sure, we take our memories with us, but I do feel like a part of us stays inside that house. So maybe there is some sort of faint heartbeat within the walls after all.

I sort of love playing with the idea of perspective. Things aren’t so clear cut to me anymore. Grief did that for me- it made me wonder, it made me curious to look beyond.

So, if you find yourself grieving a house, mourn it! Weep into its four walls and beams – because it became a part of your family. You can be grateful for the house and all the people inside it, and you can also grieve its absence. One does not steal from the other. You do not have to choose like society would have you believe.

And of course, like any form of grief, your life will go on, and you will make new memories in new places with the people you love. Take the memories of before with you always.

So, thank you to these fictional characters for helping me heal through a part of my own story that I never knew needed healing. Grief is constantly teaching me something new.

And to this house on Cape Cod…I miss you a whole lot. I will always wish we had more time. I think about you often.