My sister is remodeling a house; not just any house, but the house in which my sisters and I were raised. A year and a half ago, our dad went to live with Jesus. Our mom had passed away in 1996 and our step mom who was married to our dad moved back in with her grown children, so this left us with an empty house. Through the course of dividing the estate, my younger sister bought the house from me and our other sister; hence, the remodeling job.
This situation is different from when Mama passed on. When she left, we dealt with getting rid of her clothes and that’s about it. Everything else was still Daddy’s. But now with the passing of Daddy, we are left with dealing with the belongings of eighty-five years of living. For the most part, it can be very overwhelming. Aside from a few items, the only thing that has been dealt with is this house. My sister has plans to eventually move into the house, but being that it is an older house, many improvements need to be made. Mama and Daddy purchased the house in 1958 and did a major remodel job in 1964. Over the years, several other remodel changes were done to the house, but it is still an older home with older home issues.
With all that said, the carpenters in charge of the remodeling job have stripped the old paneling and sheet rock off the walls that covered the original walls that were covered in 1964. When we were children and lived in this house, the ceiling was 12 feet high and the walls were bare wood. When the sheet rock came off the walls, it opened the door for a flood of emotion for me and my sisters. This was the way it looked when we were small and with this, the memories of that day and time came alive.
When the house looked like that, I was between the ages of three and nine years old. Mama and Daddy were the biggest things in our lives. The exposing of this woodwork also exposed emotions in us that have been buried for many many years. My sisters and I had a beautiful childhood. We loved being at home with our parents more than anything else. Seeing the bare wood on the walls made us wish to have that time back in a way.
What is it that makes us long for the way things once were? Nostalgia is described as the sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. For my sisters and me, this would describe the feeling we have when we think of our childhood. I remember the smells, the sights and the sounds of those days gone by; each one bringing with it a strange, longing feeling.
Summer time was especially memorable. I remember eating the noon meal with the sound of the radio broadcasting the farm report on WOAI. I remember the smells of Mama cooking in the kitchen; sleeping to the sound of a big gray fan in our room; bathing in the huge claw-foot tub; the high 12 foot unpainted ceilings and walls and the sound of the screen door closing on the big front porch. All of these things are buried deep in our memories.
Our lives now have been very blessed. We all have beautiful families. We all live close to the old home place. We have all raised our children on this beautiful farm. My son made an interesting statement that is so true. When we talked about the house and all the memories it held he said, “The house doesn’t have the memories. We do.” Well said and so with that in mind, as my sister remodels the old house to make it her own, we will share those memories with our own children and grandchildren and continue to make new memories of our own. In that way, a little piece of that beautiful childhood we experienced will be felt for generations to come.