Remembering

My Grandparents' Home

It is hard to say goodbye to a beloved family home, and yet this is something I did twice this year.

The first goodbye was to my mother's parents' family home.  My grandfather built this house, for his wife and family of five children.  A simple single-storey bungalow, with a garage at the back, it was surrounded by an extensive garden. Here, his family grew up, and their pets ran in and out of the house as he nurtured his precious orchids in the garden. 

My grandmother kept house.  She pampered her grandchildren when they came to stay, cooked for her family and her clever fingers made the paper flowers which filled vase after vase in the house. 

Here lie our little pets

But now both have passed away.  The house, which has not been substantively changed in the last 60+ years since it was built, was showing its age.  It was time to say goodbye. 

And so my mum and her siblings proceeded to put the house on the market, and cleared the house of its contents. 

But some things could not be cleared.  The garden itself, full of fruit trees, the graves of pets who had passed away.  Our memories, of lazy weekend afternoons, having tea at my grandmother's large dining table.  Of playing hide-and-seek around the house and garden.  Of Christmases and New Years and Birthdays celebrated with the family.   And more recently, of visiting my grandmother in her final illness.

It's not likely that any developer will keep this old house.  So very soon, the house will only live on in our memories and photos.  And, of course, this post.

Inside the house, looking out at the garden