To everything, there is a season

Reminiscing spurs homeseller’s change of heart

By: Sally Friedman

   I think it was the color of the sign that so unhinged me. It was the brightest, most brazen yellow, a yellow I’d never have chosen in a dress, a chair or a wall.
   But there it was — that hideous yellow sign stuck on our front lawn and announcing to the world that an era had ended — our house was for sale.
   For the first few days, I blinked in disbelief at the mere sight of that sign. It seemed to have been plunked down at the wrong address because surely we weren’t ready for this. Not yet.
   No matter that it had been nearly a decade since any child had occupied the house with too many bedrooms and bathrooms, the house that suddenly seemed cavernous, silent and a bit forlorn for two late middle-aged adults. No matter that from the start, this house, an imperious English Tudor with a will all its own, had been a bit much to handle.
   We called the place "Trouble Acres." And it fit. Nothing was ever easy in a house where the architectural plans dated back to 1924.
   A weird floor plan, precarious plumbing and impractical rooms were all part of the design.
   Suddenly, instead of being annoying, those very "negatives" seemed appealing, and even downright charming.
   The first time the realtor, a lovely Southern woman with a magnolia accent and perfect hair, brought potential buyers to our door, I felt mounting rage. How dare she?
   The fact that it was her job, her mission, her mandate mattered not at all. The fact that just a few nights before, we had literally signed on the dotted line, partners in this deed forgotten.
   What mattered was that this upstart and the intruders she had in tow were about to judge this place — our place — that had enclosed within it everything that had mattered to us for the past 25 years.

To everything, there is a season Illustration by Janani Sreenivasan

   Every image of daughters blowing out birthday candles and going off to proms in pale gauzy dresses, every holiday dinner, and every party in the living room all came rushing back as these audacious strangers were overheard remarking that the "flow" was really poor, and that the kitchen was close to hopeless.
   I wanted to announce with appropriate disdain and hauteur that the "flow" was just fine for a family that loved every inch of this old place, and that the "hopeless" kitchen had managed to serve up some pretty decent food, to say nothing of joyful memories.
   It took a sheer effort of will not to point out the beech tree in the side yard where two daughters had stood as brides on those luminous June days when the concepts "home" and "love" were joined forever.
   Instead, I kept my mouth shut and hoped these ingrates wouldn’t get to live in our house. They didn’t even make an offer.
   Through three very long months, the parade of house-hunters went on and on. For that long, I awoke every day with a knot in my stomach.
   Would there be that phone call announcing that some potential buyers from out-of-state wanted to come in at 2 p.m., the precise time I’d planned a finger-painting party with Sam, our 4-year-old imp of a grandson? Would I have to rush around cleaning and straightening, hiding all evidence that people "actually lived here," and create, instead, a perfect stage set?
   Oh how I hated that illusion!
   Occasionally, I rebelled and deliberately left various "exhibits" — a broom, a newspaper, a pair of shoes, towels piled on the dryer — just to be arch.
   Sometimes, I tortured myself by staying around and eavesdropping as men and women I’d never met before flung open our closets and saw my shoes, my cosmetics and our dishes.
   But mostly, I bolted moments before the would-be-buyers arrived, and drove around the neighborhood wondering where we would go, and how we’d ever find a house with a maple tree outside our bedroom window that made waking up in spring a gift, or leaded windows that let the afternoon light filter gently into the little den near the front stairs.
   My husband and I started a countdown as the contract with the real estate firm entered its final days. And you can bet there was that predictable flurry of last-minute activity as the calendar closed in on "the end."
   The couple who wanted to plunk down wall-to-wall carpeting over our fine old wood floors and paint over the mellow chestnut paneling in the foyer thankfully retreated.
   Ditto for the corporate titan who surveyed our house as if it were an expansive board room.
   And on a glorious Sunday morning, a van pulled up and removed the brazen yel low sign from our lawn. That was the day we understood fully that a home is so very much more than wood, plaster and stucco.
   Home is a shelter for the soul, a place where hope and memory collide, a sacred place. When you’re ready to leave a home, you know it. And when you’re not, nothing is more painful than the thought of losing it.
   Yes, to everything, there is a season.
   And ours for parting has not yet come.