This is the house that started it all.Once she was just a number. Over time she was named and the name took: “No Hassle” She braved strong winds and when she wasn’t strong enough she was rebuilt on her existing, even stronger foundation. Her walls were knocked down-painted, repainted and donned with hundreds of pictures. Her shelves and any available space or glass container were filled with treasures of any good shell collector. So many shells. And beach glass. And shark teeth.Some intact, some not so much. Treasures all the same. Sort of like the people that walked in and our of her doors. At one time there was a wooden screen door that whacked every time it closed. Lastly there was a sliding glass door to let in more light and keep the cool air inside. This house contains 40 years worth of love, sand and secrets. She has seen weddings,birthdays and cocktail parties, people who were lost, people who got found and the start of some beautiful friendships. There have been card games, long naps, sleepovers, shrimp dinners,something sweet, lots of coffee, lots of wine and lots of laughter. She has been a shelter to many, a respite from the storm, personal or otherwise. Flags flew, rockers rocked and wet bathing suits and towels dried quickly on the line. There was always abundant sunshine-never mind the clouds. There was always an abundance of everything. And she never cared if you took what you needed-and then some. This house, she served many-but there was one in particular she served until the very end.
This house is no longer the same. It is different now. My recent travels back to her proved this. So much so, that is was all I could do to not quickly turn around and leave the minute I walked through the door.It didn’t feel right. It smelled differently. It looked dull and un-kept. And there in the corner of the driveway, right next to the big Yucca plant was the for sale sign, swinging in the offshore breeze. A bit ominous. This house was the one thing my mother held on to: through divorce, through cancer, through it all. It was built for us all to live in as we started roots in a new town. Then it became a summer home for what we thought would be forever. Then it became the place my mom went home too and stayed. It was the place where summer jobs and summer romances lived fully while the southeastern North Carolina sun shone down on sea oats and the ebb and flow of the Atlantic. Where June, July and August seemed like a life time and those months gave into the other summer-September through November,when tourists left and the island was given back to the locals. My mom loved this time of year the best. It was always a cottage-nothing more, nothing less. It contained the soul of my mother-showcasing her phases of life(macrame and beyond) haircuts ( I remember a really bad perm) and surgery. She grew here. We all did. She grieved here. We all did. But mostly, and without fail, she thrived here. My mother celebrated friendships, retirement, ACC weekends, scrabble tournaments and the solitude of herself. She lived for this house-but I know now, this house lived for her too. And now it too is slowly fading, like my mother did.
It was the one true wish my mother always had. To die in her beloved beach house-even as her mind grew worse and the costs and risks of keeping her at home became a daily balancing act, it was the one thing she kept repeating. It was the wish I, along with my two brothers vowed to keep, never mind the naysayers and the costs. Never mind those who screamed she belonged in a nursing home, or those who stopped coming to see her, or those who set out to not stay true to her and her house. It was the one thing we would see through. And we did.
“I am only leaving here feet first”, my mom would say.
And she did. On a day custom- ordered for her-with an incredible breeze coming off the ocean and the blaze of a July morning.
Admittedly, I could not watch when that moment came and the gentle,southern funeral director came up to me and my brother to let us know they would be removing mom from the home. It was time. They would be taking her from her beloved cottage into the what seemed like the biggest grey hearse I had ever seen waiting in the driveway. I could not watch. So those of us there, went round back to the ocean side, I, clinging to my brother Chris and the others in their own moment of silent prayer and tears. I held on tight, and hoped my sobs would cover the click-clack of the gurney taking my mom, feet first, out the door and down the steps.
Her wish fulfilled. Her house, although full of friends, family and medical personal, now empty.
It was different this time when the plane landed and there was no hurry up and get there anticipation- only stopping along the way at the familiar places to get sweet tea and suntan oil. There was no need to forgo unpacking -just to get on the deck as quickly as possible and soak up every bit of time that starts ticking away the minute we get there. There was no mom. She was not sitting right there, where she always did- years ago, on the deck, and towards the end, on the sofa and finally, resting in the medical bed.
She was gone. And in some ways, the house is too. Her house served her well. It provided her all the things she wished for and wanted-right up until her last breath and now, it looks lost without her. Still standing and in wait of someone new to take over and build new memories. Or tear her down and start all over again.
Never to be the same.