Homes Have Heart

THE RECENT TOPIC at Wet Coast Women called The Family Home got me thinking about the past and circumstances surrounding my own early family home.

Affordability was an issue, not because housing was overpriced at the time, but because my immigrant father, a university professor in Europe, failed at farming in Canada. He sold his land and soon after became plagued with serious health problems. Eventually, we were renters. Today, even though my adult life is different and I have my own family home, I enjoy revisiting the places were I grew up.

As a child, my wish for our very own house and treed yard was an impossible dream. But now rediscovering the sometimes reconstructed or torn down homes where we once lived makes me more than melancholy, it shows the rich tapestry of my life.

Whether or not we paid taxes and were responsible for the roof repairs on this or that structure now seems less important than the fact that these were the special places were we put down our transportable roots. When I miss the people I lost from the early years, I go to some of these places and relive the “epic” memories of my past. I guess that’s why the cliché says: “home is where the heart is” and NOT: home is where the property ownership is.

My dear mother wanted to provide us with a “real” home. But it is the taffeta dress she sewed for me, the French-fry Fridays and sun bathing on the hot apartment roof we DIDN’T own that brings back the love. To fulfill a dream, my older siblings eventually were able to chip in for a down payment on a house for mom where she lived for a few short years before passing away.