A House is not a Home

Home

"A chair is still a chair
Even when there's no one sittin' there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home
When there's no one there to hold you tight
And no one there you can kiss goodnight"
--from "A House is Not a Home," B. Bacharach & H. David

I lived in the same house for the first seventeen years of my life. I posted a photo of that house on my last blog but will post it again:

I thought I loved my house. It was certainly a beautiful house. And my parents worked hard on that house. My father, a skilled carpenter and mason, ensured that it was built to his high standards. It was warm in the winters and cool in the summers. I had my own bedroom--something special that many of my friends didn't have in post-war Montreal. And my parents redecorated it when I became a teenager--cabinets where I could keep all my "stuff," a shelf for my record player and portable TV. 

My parents planted beautiful flowers outside every Spring and enjoyed sitting in the backyard. There were parties at least once a month. When I was a little girl, I had birthday parties out in our backyard too. There was a piano in the basement where, when I opened the door in the afternoon after returning from school, I could hear my mother playing and singing her favorite songs from the 1920s and 1930s. Or hear the sounds of the record player--Dean Martin or Al Martino crooning love songs. There was always sound in the house--I would go to sleep at night listening to CJAD's Paul Reid. Whenever I hear "O mi babbino caro" I think of those nights.

But it wasn't my house I loved. It was my life and that life revolved around my mother's bubbly, happy presence. And when she died on October 8, 1968 at the age of 56, that life came to a screeching halt. I knew it that first afternoon after the funeral, as I came home from high school, unlocked the door and stepped into silence. And I knew in my 16 year old heart that that house would be silent forevermore. My father and I limped along in the house for another year but then Dad sold the house and we moved into an apartment. My father and I didn't get along at that point. It was 1969, a time of turmoil especially for someone like me, in my first year of university at a very liberal downtown university, suddenly bereft of the female support I had had in my parochial high school. It was the era of "let it all hang out," and "do what feels good." My father's way of dealing with it was to ignore it all and hope that it would go away--that I would go away. (Or so I thought.)

So my life with him in the apartment only lasted a few years. Then came a succession of "digs"--an apartment with a friend, a couple of studios on my own. Working to make ends meet. Broken love affairs. Two and a half years living in England. Single parenthood for nineteen years. And, all of that time, the truth of that song staring me in the face, "A house is not a home."

Somehow, in the autumn of my life, I have finally found a home. In a way, my Arizona bungalow is a bit like the home of my youth except that the backyard is stone instead of grass and there is a lolloping heeler that my mother--who was deathly afraid of dogs--would never have had:

There is some music in the house sometimes--MoTab choir, John Denver, Michael Buble, Adele--but mainly there is the click of the computer keyboard and the sound on occasion of grandchildren's laughter. And the sound of British TV series. Tonight there was the chug of the dishwasher and water on the floor--modern conveniences, bah!

There's no one to hold me tight tonight but he does exist--he just happens to be on the other side of the US right now. But he's there and in a few weeks he WILL kiss me goodnight. Tonight I am happy to have had slobbery kisses from the four grandchildren and the dog is always willing (thanks Mitzi but no thanks.)

This is my home and I am thankful for it. Sometime I will write more about all of the many, many places I have lived but for tonight, that's it.