all that's left - the piano


The house is empty now as I take this picture. Dad quickly did his fair share of cleaning things out right after mom died, dispensing of the reminders of her absence. Of course we all felt very confused by his actions and couldn't see the reasoning in his decisions to randomly give things away.

But now, I have never seen the house so empty, and it seems so strange on many levels. I remember looking at old pictures of the house taken when I was a baby and thinking how sparse it looked. That wasn't the house I remembered growing up in. The house of my childhood was pretty much cluttered and messy most of the time, although clean. My parents weren't ones for being overly organized. Don't get me wrong, the phone book went on the second shelf in the cupboard over the microwave along with all the bills, the checkbook, and the stamps, but that was about the extent of the organization in our house.

So many years of building a home together, choosing furniture, hanging wallpaper, remodeling. My parents did things once and only once. They couldn't afford to redecorate with the changing styles. So when furniture came in, wallpaper got hung, and walls got knocked down, it stayed that way. That was home - always the same. Although the crazy wallpaper mom decided to hang one day while I was in high school still adorns the dining room, the furniture is gone and the house is empty; except for the piano, and the gauzy curtains.

No comments: