by too many goodbyes
Sunday was spent traveling to the Victoria area on Vancouver Island for my late aunt’s ‘remembering’… a sweet event, lovingly and artistically arranged by her daughter, my cousin, at her charming lakeside cottage home. Heartwarming stories and memories shared with hugs, laughter and tears. Another wrenching goodbye was to this house which my cousin has to leave soon.
Our own family stayed at my late mother-in-law’s house where one sister-in-law has lived for many years after her passing. With her daughter and husband joining us, we had a celebration of their coming first child over a traditional family breakfast on Monday morning. Seated around Omi’s teak table with her German china we remembered the many years she used to serve us a similar breakfast. A walk around her lovely garden had me misty-eyed remembering her as she worked in it, as we had to say another goodbye to another home, for this has now been sold, so many years since she left it. (Please see daughter Erika’s lovely post about it.)
The ferry ride home is always so very beautiful – the blue skies, white puffy clouds, sparkling waters, lovely islands sprinkled with cottages….
It’s taken me a long time to write this and I apologize for the wistful nostalgia. I must be getting old.
April 30, 2013 in Canada and BC, Current Events, Home by Marja-Leena
No apology necessary. Funny how houses become people.
I like the words ‘islands sprinkled with cottages’.
Marja-Leena,
many of us older people are like cats. They become one with the home, house, shelter. It is very difficult to leave, always. I’ve lived in over 20 cities/communities, in three countries and as many communes.
Luckily we have the net to keep in touch with some of the people left behind, but of course there is memories. Without them we would hardly be alive. As we well know.
Some American writer (maybe Mark Twain?) said: Youth is such fine thing to be consumed only by youth.
It’s May-day here, and the worker’s March has already started, I set at home. Without a doubt, half of the city is trying to enjoy drinking in very cold weather, clear sky yes, but rough wind.
Somebody, a very young person, voiced her opinion in net saying that maybe the working class doesn’t exist yet. Probably a discussion developing about it.
Soon a bike ride around the sea shore. Happy May-day!
What delightful surroundings, the kind in which one thoughts can become enraptured.
I agree about nostalgia. It is often a consolation.
Lucy, I hope I didn’t imply houses were more important than the people who lived in them.
Marjatta, Hauskaa Vappua, Happy May Day! It’s such a major holiday in Finland and other north European countries, but not here at all. I did not have the time and energy to write about it this year as I usually have in past years.
I’m always quite sad leaving a home, though we haven’t moved often in our married life. We both moved a lot as children so maybe that’s why we have stayed in this community for decades. I’ve said to my husband that he can carry me out of this one 🙂 I do believe our spirits linger on in the homes we’ve loved and lived in.
Tom, yes, we are very lucky to live in a most beautiful part of the world.
Joe, that’s true – a consolation especially as we get older and see more loved ones leave us. Their homes were a part of their lives when living and so they are part of that loss we feel.
Place. A space. A spot in which memories are made together. And accumulated for consolation later. I remember that I shed tears when my Grandparent’s home was sold. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. Thank you, dear Marja-Leena, for writing this post. Sending hugs.
Rouchswalwe, thank you for your understanding words and for the hugs!
I too have been affected by intense bouts of nostalgia even while in the midst of a joyous occasion. I’d suddenly be aware of us all and the surroundings as part of a tableau that would never be repeated.. at least not in this dimension.
Susan, ah yes, I know that feeling intensely. You’ve described it well, thank you!
Yesterday I had to sing at a funeral, so nostalgia is in order here too. I recognize all those feelings, and yes, it takes a little age to acquire them and to know their strange sweetness as well as pain.
It is hard to say good-by to people. But it is also hard to say good-by to a house that has been the theatre where people one loves lived and moved.
Marly, the ‘strange sweetness as well as pain’ is beautiful.
I’m also seeing the sweet sadness that my husband and his sister are going through in dividing up, giving away and trying to dispose of their mother’s belongings in that house…and this is thirteen years after her passing. And I can imagine my cousin’s fresh pain as she does the same with her recently deceased mother’s things , even if it is not a household of stuff. It is a stage each generation has to cope with . (A reminder again to get rid of a lot of unneeded stuff!)