Filling the spaces

[handslive]

I don't have the length or breadth of purplejavatroll's memories of her old home. But this was her home when we first met. I also wrote some impressions after going there to board stuff up. It was a weird experience for me.

I wasn't involved in shutting up my mother's father's place and selling the equipment when he decided to move into town. And I didn't go down south and help my father's family move out of the old house and into town. I understand intellectually that it's different than just selling a house in a town or city. There's more equipment usually. There's usually several buildings with specific uses. These things fall apart when they aren't used and maintained. But this was closer to "home" for me. Gordon had always made me welcome and, for me, this was still his place.

So, anyway, my notes:

What was different? There had been thistle and tall grass before. The granaries and sheds had been old then. Slowly rusting machinery had sat in rows between buildings.

But it was different. The crisscrossing paths he would have followed to do the chores were choked with weeds. The tools were gone from their nails and toolboxes. The toolboxes and buckets weren't put away the same way, neatly, lined up, out of the way of doors and foot traffic. But those were just details.

Truthfully, the breath had gone out of it. Unknown to me, his spirit had filled this place, all those acres of land. In all the other ways I had known he was gone, I hadn't missed this part of him yet.

Now these building were just empty. More than empty, they were unowned.

Hmmm. It's hard to put my finger on the hugeness of the space left inside these buildings and inbetween the buildings. It seemed sometimes like I could physically feel the space where he'd been. And on top of that, it felt like a warning of the space my own father will leave at home.

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[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

My father created this - being an only child - by leaving his family for another woman, and not being there when his own father needed to retire. And so, I was robbed of that inheritance.