Home Alone

A Grand View      

     For nine years, I had taken the right turn at the top of Grandview Drive onto Joseph Avenue, once a week, sometimes several times a week, to visit Mom and Dad.  For the last 26 years, it was to visit Mom after Dad passed away in 1999.  There was nothing noteworthy about taking that turn onto Grandview.  It was simply the last turn a few seconds away from pulling into the driveway.  There were countless reasons for me making the trip: mowing the lawn, raking leaves, shoveling the driveway, washing my car, or doing menial tasks around the house to lend a hand.  Mostly, it was simply to visit my parents.  I'd be treated to a home cooked meal, watch a game on television amid conversation with Dad, or spend Sundays and holidays with other visiting family members.  Over the last two and a half decades, it was to see Mom, enjoy her company, and usually be fed something a hundred times better than my usual diet of microwavable and take-out food.  But now everything's changed, and things will never be the same again.  Mom died last September. 

     I still feel like I'm going to pay her a visit each time I make that right turn at the top of Grandview while passing Anderson's old house at 2 Joseph Avenue.  I can see her front yard and driveway as I approach McKenna's house at 11 Joseph (it will forever be McKenna's to me, no matter the current occupants).  Three houses later I turn at the black mailbox with the number 25 on it, and into Mom's driveway.  This is when that feeling of anguish hits me, like a ten-foot wave I can't escape from, eventually soaking my entire body from head to toe.  It's a feeling I still feel, eight months after Mom died, each time I pull into the driveway and park my car.  A tidal wave submerging me beneath an inescapable, palpable weight of sadness, emptiness, and loneliness.  All because Mom is no longer inside the house waiting for me to come inside. Instead, 25 Joseph Avenue is now empty for the first time in 70 years.

      I'm parked in Mom's driveway now, sitting in her blue Ford Fusion.  I've just come from work after my night shift and I'm behind my old Honda Civic (sale pending) that's parked underneath the house's extended roof.  For years, it was the other way around - me in my Civic and the Fusion parked in the left spot by the door, whenever I'd pull into the driveway.  I sit in the car for a while, distracting myself to avoid going in the house.  Finding no one inside is something I haven't gotten used to yet, and it's something I dread each time I walk in the house.  So I delay the inevitable if only for a few minutes.  I fiddle with my phone, or gaze around without looking at anything in particular.  Sometimes I'll just hit scan on the radio dial until I can find a song or two that allows me to delay my exit from the car.  This ritual is almost an everyday occurrence for me now.

     Dad purchased the house for $15,000 in 1957.  A three-bedroom, one bathroom ranch typical of most houses on Joseph Avenue and the connecting streets.  Living in a house this size with six children, even with two converted bedrooms in the basement, seems unimaginable by today's living space standards.  But it wasn't uncommon at the time.  Our neighborhood block was perfectly typical for families like ours growing up.  The Joseph Ave/Grandview Drive block was filled with other young families, and friends mine and my sisters' age were aplenty.  The neighborhood was quiet from much car noise, because the only traffic was from residents leaving and returning, which made the street itself its own safe playground for bike riding, skateboarding, chalk drawing, and any sports pick-up game.  Wiffleball, frisbee, street hockey, football tossing, and lacrosse catch were all a part of our pavement play.  The constant noise and activity of children and teenagers around our neighborhood lasted from daylight to dusk in the 1970's and 80's.

     I was the last of us six kids to move out of the house when I was 25, leaving Mom and Dad without kids under their roof for the first time in 35 years.  When Dad passed away, Mom was alone by herself there for the last 26 years of her life.  September 18, 2025 was her last day and night there at home.  She called 911 around 10pm and died unexpectantly in the hospital a few hours into the early morning the next day.  

The When

      "When I die..." was a familiar start to a sentence Mom would repeat hundreds of times over her last 26 years.  She wasn't afraid to confront her own mortality in both philosophical and practical ways. Nor was she afraid to voice a plethora of dying wishes, with detailed instructions.

     "When I die, remember my locked safe is in my bedroom closet - it has all my legal and monetary paperwork. Joann has the key."

     "When I die, I don't want a eulogy.  The priest's homily is all I want."

     "When I day, remember, all my funeral costs are paid for.  Use the money in my savings account for The Westwood (restaurant) bill."

     "When I die, make sure you contact Linda Molta (Last Will & Testament attorney)."

     "When I die, make sure you know how to properly turn the stove on and off. I've written it down."

     "When I die, make sure the septic tank is serviced every five years."

     Those last few directives were given to me specifically, because I was named executor.  Being the poorest and spouse-less child were a couple reasons for Mom's decision.  The support of Mom's decision by my sisters made that easier for her, I'm sure.

     "You can do whatever you want with the house" She would say to me.  Move in, sell it, make it into a Bed & Breakfast, you decide."  My response was usually indifferent or comedic whenever Mom brought up the topic of her no longer being here.  "I'll probably die before you, Mom", I'd say. "You know I don't always prioritize my safety in a lot of situations I put myself in."  Mom's absence wasn't something I wanted to contemplate, let alone discuss.  So, I'd respond innocuously:

 

 "The first thing I'm going to do", I'd tell her, "Is get rid of your ugly leather furniture and light fixtures." I hated the three-piece creme-colored furniture in the living room and the two oversized chandelier-like glass ceiling lights in the kitchen.  One of which hung so low that anyone six feet tall or taller had to duck to avoid hitting their head.

     True to my promise, a few weeks after September 19, I did just that.  Out went the leather couch, chair, and loveseat, replaced by my new chenille fabric set from Raymour & Flanagan.  I removed the light fixtures, which involved taken apart about three dozen separate glass panels.  Replacing them with simple, much smaller and much lighter dimmer lights was the first of many changes to come.  In the first month, my Amazon purchase count totaled 43 items.  Light switches and fixtures, kitchen tiles, paint, window blinds, wallpaper, end tables, cabinets, bookshelves, and more.  I bought household necessities I had never owned before: drills, wire splitters, power screwdrivers, a dehumidifier, an air purifier, a ten-foot ladder, just to name a few.

Home Coming

     I moved in the first week of November and immediately I felt like a visitor or a guest in the house.  I still don't refer to the house as my own.  I still say, "I'm at Mom's" and "Meet me at Mom's" (calling it "Mom's" instead of "Mom and Dad's" is simply because Mom was there alone these last few decades).  Living there still feels uncomfortable all these months later.  Being alone by myself in the house I grew up in all these years later, isn't just emotionally and psychologically difficult, but physically taxing. I feel the heartache and heaviness, like a stake in my chest and a barbell on my shoulders.  Instead of a six week and counting healing timeline in the grieving process since Mom's death, I felt like I was back at Day 1 when I moved in.  Worse, I felt this Day 1 was more difficult in a lot of ways than September 19th.  It was easier back at my own place.  Now I was in a house that I never wanted to be mine.  I wanted it to remain Mom's and Dad's forever.  The realization of their absence by being in their home without them, made the loneliness lonelier and the emptiness more agonizing.  I'm just a guest here, no matter what the deed now says. 

     My first night "back home" was predictably unpleasant. Exhausted after three days' worth of moving, I realized I didn't have an Allen wrench to put together my disassembled wooden-pieced bed frame.  I didn't have a flat sofa, so my only option was sleeping in the lounge chair.  Getting comfortable was impossible.  It didn't recline perfectly flat, and the curves and angles of the chair didn't allow for much comfortable sleep at all. Not that that mattered much.  Based on the previous six weeks, I knew I wasn't going to get much sleep anyway.  Putting my mind to rest was a lot harder than putting my body to rest.  I managed only a few hours of fragmented sleep that night and not much more even in my reassembled bed the next night.  Since Mom died, I could count on one hand the number of nights I slept more than a few hours.

      I chose the smallest room as my bedroom, the same bedroom I occupied from age 12 to 19.  Lying awake in my bed on night two, I looked at the four bare walls and recalled how they looked 40 years earlier.  On my left I had a Jennifer Beals poster and a Nike poster of Paul Westphal on a playground basketball court with the caption, Going Home on the bottom.  The opposite wall had a Beatles poster from the Let It Be album, and the four portrait pictures of John, Paul, George, and Ringo that came included in the White Album. Against the window wall sat my mini stereo atop my storage cabinet of record albums and cassette tapes adjacent to my dresser.  Now, only Dad's dresser occupied space next to my bed.  Recalling those early years, I re-imagined my childhood German shepherd Duke, who would push open my bedroom door with his nose and wake me up, alerting me it was time for him to go outside.  I thought how having my own dog now would make for great company.  And maybe help me sort through and cope with the feelings of emotional loss I was unable to reconcile on my own.

Present Past

      Replacing Mom's furniture and kitchen lights was just the start of what I never thought I'd ever become: a home-decorator. For someone with minimum manual labor skills and home fix-up experience, updating things in the house wasn't the easiest undertaking. My sisters did all the cleaning and sifting through Mom's collectables, hauling away or donating decades worth of Mom and Dad's things.  Their help went above and beyond.  But when it came to the house's makeover, I declined all offers of help. I wasn't exactly sure why, but I wanted to go it alone.  I knew I'd never feel like the house was mine, so I wanted to make sure whatever changes I made, it would still feel like the family home I grew up in.  I wanted all family members, including my parents, having an all-access pass to come and go as they please.  I was also hoping whatever task I undertook would somehow provide some sort of therapeutic relief.

     Once I started refurnishing, I did find it cathartic.  Hours, days, weeks, and months of making changes, just me by myself and my Amazon Alexa for company, gave me a focus and mission.  Painting, putting furniture pieces together, wallpapering, hanging pictures - all lent itself to sorting through a lot of thoughts and emotions, while also helping ignore things that were too overwhelming.  Memories of childhood occupied a good portion of my labor.  The good, the not so good, the happy, the sad, the memorable, the forgetful.  Working alone in the house had my brain taking a virtual reality trip back in time.  From teaching Duke how to roll-over, and later, Roxie, to Dad singing along to Sinatra records playing on our huge stereo console.  From Mom cooking and serving all eight of us a huge Sunday dinner to sibling fights to Christmas mornings to mandatory All In The Family and Happy Days viewings, to first days of school, to parties held when Mom and Dad were away.  Decades of memories flooded my thoughts while I painted, plastered, wallpapered, and put furniture together, keeping me company while Alexa played catalogues of 70's and 80's music at my request.  Mom and Dad's transcendent presence was sentimentally welcomed through it all. 

     Trying to balance doing my own thing while still keeping it Mom's house was imperative.  The fake fireplace TV stand that she loved - that stays.  Framed pictures of Mom and Dad's wedding remain displayed along with Dad's commemorative American flag. The Disney knickknacks and Mickey Mouse cabinet handles in the bathroom are staying, along with other collectables of Mom's affinity for everything Disney.  The three plastic geese occupying the grass in the front yard aren't going anywhere.  No matter that I've always hated them, and despite Mom tasking me with the obnoxious responsibility for changing their location on the lawn every week.  Me cutting the lawn wasn't a priority of hers, but keeping a realistic appearance of her fake plastic geese was.

     That first week in November, I had a dream that Duke came into my room, just like he used to do regularly four decades earlier, tail wagging and nudging me awake with his nose. I awoke with a smile of sentimental happiness coupled with a broken heartstring or two. Emotional duality I feel every day. Memories flicker through the slideshow of my mind's eye and have me simultaneously enjoying and disliking them.  Mostly it's seeing Mom - at the stove cooking something or sitting outside on the deck with her coffee and morning newspaper.  Sometimes I'll walk into the TV room and picture her in her lounge chair reading a book or working on her latest artistic project, waiting for me to come in, sit, and catch up on whatever happenings have passed since my last visit.  These happy images are usually accompanied with the blues.

     I feel like Forrest Gump - in that scene where he awakes to find his Jenny has left the house without notice.  He stands at the bedroom door where she slept, staring at the empty space and the empty room.  He sits motionless in disconsolate thought by the big bow window and again on a wooden rocking chair on his front porch.  I find myself doing the same thing often - walking around or sitting in the emptiness of the house, despondent over the quiet loneliness of time standing still.  I've lived by myself for over thirty years.  No spouse, no live-in girlfriend, no pet.  Yet this is the first time I've ever felt alone.  Mom had been a widow for 26 years, and I only now realize just how lonely she must've felt after Dad died after 42 years of marriage, because my guess is I'm feeling something similar.  Forrest eventually got up from his rocking chair and began his three-year run "to put the past behind (him)".  My running shoes are still in the box.

     After a few weeks in the house, I confessed to Uncle George my emotional turmoil over living at Mom's by myself.  I told him I felt lonely, distressed, unworthy, and most of all uncomfortable being where I was.  I asked him how long he thought this feeling would last.  I was banking on him giving me some sort of comforting platitude like how time heals all wounds and how it'll pass before I know it.  Something, anything, to keep me sane and sanguine.  Instead, he says, "Give it about two or three years.  I'm sure you'll be able to get through it just fine."

     "TWO OR THREE YEARS???" I replied.  "Are you kidding me?  I was hoping it'd be two or three months!"  Jesus, I thought...I don't know if I can handle it if that's my timeline. 

My Old Neighborhood

     The more things change, the more they stay the same.  At least according to some little-known French author of that well-known expression. Conversely, the opposite seems to hold some truth to it as well: that the more things stay the same, the more they change.  Not much in my old neighborhood has changed.  Outside of some modernized renovations, the houses and landscapes on Joseph Avenue and around the block are relatively the same as they were 50 years ago.  But now the neighbor part of the hood is totally different.  When I look out my picture window, unknown figures occupy the house across the street, where Jeff Beach used to live.  Two houses down to the right, the Cavallon's house is now occupied by an anonymous man with a company pickup truck who seems to be doing repairs on it. every day.  Jeff and Mark Cavallon were two of my best childhood friends growing up.  We all played Little League, basketball, and lacrosse together for years and all through high school.  When I sit on my non-leather couch sipping my morning coffee, I have a direct view of McKenna's house on the corner.  Marybeth and Sheila McKenna were inseparable best friends of my older sisters.  The occupants have been there only about a year, after the still recent deaths of Bob and Mary McKenna, Mom's good friends for all those 50 years.  My once-upon-a-time familiar, noisy, and wonderful neighborhood, with mothers and fathers and kids and roaming dogs and cats, whose names and faces were known to everybody, is now filled with people coming and going in quiet anonymity.  Not that I didn't know this many years earlier or understand the reality of changes over time.  But it wasn't a full-time experience for me until now.  There's something dispiriting when your nostalgia gets replaced by something new and unknown.  For someone who has always loved his solitude and privacy, the old neighborhood has become so ghost-like and unfamiliar, even I feel isolated.

Passing Time

     I drove down East Mountain Road on my way to Mom's the other day, after doing some errands and officiating a youth lacrosse game.  I put on my left turn blinker to turn onto Grandview Drive, then turned it off after a few clicks.  I passed Grandview and drove another few miles on East Mountain, wasting time and looking for somewhere else to go.  Somewhere else besides home.  It wasn't the first time I've done this, or the first time I delayed going home by going elsewhere.  It was more like the 100th time.

     "Give it two or three years" I heard Uncle George's voice in my head again.  I'm at month eight now, and I haven't seemed to make much progress at all.  I wonder if therapy would help, I thought.  Or a (therapy) dog.  Maybe I just need a nice long sunny summer of outdoor activity and Vitamin D exposure after the past too many cold months of winter and spring.  Maybe a few more Springsteen concerts or a new Springsteen album might do the trick.  The Stoics acknowledged that, as imperfect human beings, it is perfectly natural to grieve, but not to mourn for eternity.  They say your focus should lie on having celebrated the time shared with a loved one and feeling gratitude for that experience.

     Until I'm able to do that - better than I currently am - I'll probably continue avoiding home from time to time.  I'll probably still detour from taking that turn onto Grandview Drive every now and then until it becomes less of a struggle.  And I'll probably continue sitting in Mom's Fusion in the driveway for a few extra minutes before going inside the house, like I'm doing right now.  Until...

       I finally get out of the car and walk the few steps to the back door.  I unlock the door and step into the kitchen and the quietness of the inside.  I walk over to the sliding glass door to the outside deck and open the blinds to let the morning sunshine in.  I picture Mom sitting outside at the patio table with her morning newspaper, doing the Jumble.  It's a nice, imagined picture I see frequently when I look out at the deck, and per usual, is coupled with a bit of sadness.  That feeling of loss - not as heavy as earlier months - surrounds me again.  The Stoic principle of recovery is there - I can hear it and see it.  It's just not within reach quite yet.  Not today anyway.  Maybe in another two or three more months, or maybe two or three years.  Maybe one day, hopefully, 25 Joseph Avenue will feel like home. Again.