What lies in wait...
Tom has asked about home. So, I'll write about it.
I don't know how to talk about it so I just will.
I came home and my parents were in the rental house. It was down the road and around the corner from the farm. I drove past the farm and the barn was gone. It had been taken down. It was gone. It was completely dismantled. That is no mean feat for a barn.
The shop was gone. My grandfather's shop where all the tools had been and he had made all manner of gadgets and contraptions was gone. It was gone. There was nothing there.
The house was still there but it looked and seemed like a house from a war. The windows were gone. You could see from the road into the house, through the living room into the dining room and into the washroom. It was a shell of a house; it was not a home anymore.
I remember what I felt when I saw it. I felt raw. If someone had peeled off my skin and dipped me in a saltwater bath, I would not have felt as raw as I did then. I felt sick and damaged. I felt the way I had felt that time I was assaulted by someone I had trusted. I felt exposed. I thought that as I drove down the street people must have seen me and known what I was feeling. I felt like I was on display. And I knew that what had happened and what was happening wasn't fair.
This is what the farm looked like when I left Canada.
This is what it looked like when I got back.
This picture is the kindest one I have, it doesn't show the rubble that was left after the house was demolished. The little white building is the outside stone cellar that was next to the house. Now it is the only testament that a house was ever there.
My family lived in that house for over a hundred years. My family lived on that land for 199 years. I would have liked the chance to live there and grow old there. I won't have that chance.
The event of going home that time was a singular experience. I will never have it again. I would not wish it on anyone.
Maybe, Tom, you can understand now why I didn't write about it for so long.
posted by Mark at 8:39 PM
2 Comments:
I won't say that I understood what it felt like to see your HOME, as a shell of itself. I can try to imagine, but never truly know.
Recently, I have found myself experiencing various emotions after looking at photos of my parent' home. (only a mere four and a half decades of residence there)The photos were taken at various seasons and evoke totally different emotions. I have decided to use them for writing prompts but moreso to dig deeper into my feelings about myself and hopefully achieve some kind of healing... some kind of rebirth.
Those pictures are so powerful. But they are pictures of a home still occupied by my parents.
For you, I wish you a speedy transfer to a place in your heart where the nagging pain of knowing what the farm is today is drowned out by the joyful song of warm memories.
Hugs,
Terri
7:17 PM
Yeah, I do understand-- it must have been awful! It's not just home- it's Heimat- the land that evokes a deep sense of belonging and rootedness.
I'm sorry to read about this experience and I hope that you will be able to establish yourself somewhere new.
1:43 AM
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