Our Old House

 By: Kelly McDonald

“The first thing to know about living in an old house: The walls are alive.”

― Frances Mayes, A Place in the World: Finding the Meaning of Home

        This morning, as I arose to start my morning walk, getting myself prepared, turning on lights, opening curtains to ready our home for the morning sunlight, I felt a sudden wave of nostalgia. We’ve lived in this house for 33 years. Though once full of the sounds of family when we first moved into its habitation with our seven children, it is now overcome with quiet, imposing in its physical emptiness, as my wife, Beverly, and I live out our remaining years together within its walls.

        We hired a contractor to build our house over three decades ago, and we have faced few maintenance problems during the intervening years until now. The house has faithfully served our needs, with not much complaint on its part. We feel like our house has taken care of us, as we have tried to take care of it. But it also feels like something serious is about to happen. A few years ago we faced a dilapidated roof, which we replaced. But we expected it; the shingles had more than lasted their advertised life. Then, last Monday, as the garage door was rolling down, a cable from the original door opener snapped, requiring an expensive service call. The serviceman commented as I was paying him, “That motor in your door opener is still running, and it's older than I am.” Now, Beverly and I wonder if our house will continue to provide for us as faithfully as it has done for so many years.

        Sometimes in the morning, I will notice a faint flickering of lights. It's not clear to me if this is caused by something inside our home or perhaps outside in the power grid. Later in the day, I don’t notice the flicker, so I’m chalking it up to Provo City Power. But does that mean the transformer out on the pole will completely give out? I continue to worry.

        In the closet's ceiling of our upstairs bedroom, there is a trapdoor which permits me to climb into the attic. But I’ve never opened it, not even once. I know the attic contains insulation to help keep our house warm. But in those thirty-three years, I’ve never needed to go up into the attic. No one else has been up there either. Is everything OK?

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        All over the house, there is evidence of our family’s habitation. There are dents in molding, the result of sometimes bickering brothers. Pencil marks on another wall in the family room represent the gradual growth of our youngest son, as he rose to adulthood. To make things work with our seven growing children, we finished constructing the basement before we moved in—one of the better house decisions we’ve made. But now there are just the two of us, and the basement remains dark and quiet with stillness. Until I turn the lights on, only a few small windows provide a little outside light. I close the heating/cooling vents since no one is living down there.

        Sometimes our family will stay with us when they come to visit. I open the vents, and they happily liven up the basement while they’re here. But when they leave, it returns to the gloomy place that it once was before they arrived. And I know there are several sinister demons continuing to hide down there, ready to leap out and threaten us. The furnace is original to the construction of the house, and though we had some significant repairs performed about a decade ago, I'm sure it's waiting for the coldest moment to rise up and attack us again with some type of furnace failure. Along with its evil companions, the water heater and air-conditioner, I know this trio of appliances is conspiring to cause all kinds of trouble for us when we least expect it. I could call the heating/cooling contractor I often see driving around the neighborhood to come and inspect my basement equipment. But I already know what his business-building answer will be: “If we don’t immediately replace all three appliances, they’ll all fail us at the same time.”

        Since our retirement, we seldom travel. Our children and grandchildren come to visit us, and we occasionally drive short distances to visit them. In the evenings, as we finish up dinner, rather than go out for a night on the town, we retreat to our upstairs bedroom to rewatch our extensive library of old TV-series we have collected over the years. We turn off the lights and other electrical devices on the main floor to conserve as much energy as possible. When we draw the window curtains tightly in our upstairs bedroom as we start another episode of Star Trek, The Original Series, the exterior of our house looks vacant, foreboding, no one at home. No doubt, there are some advantages to our growing reclusive lifestyle. It's resulted in fewer incidents of doorbell-ditching than our more active and visible neighbors in their nearby lighted and active homes, but it may become more attractive to break-ins while we are present, another disturbing thought.

        But there is one more growing worry, more looming than my daily concerns about broken appliances, more worrisome than the demise of our old house. What will happen when one of us succumbs to our own mortality? It's not something that we like to talk about much. Will the other wish to stay here in our old house by themself? I’ve spent the night alone in this house when Beverly was helping with grandchildren. Beverly has spent the night alone when I traveled for my work. We’ve told each other that it’s a lonesome place when we’re alone in our old house. And it’s likely that Beverly will outlive me. Not only do national statistics predict it, but she comes from a long line of elderly matrons, her mother living into her mid-eighties and grandmother into her nineties. Unlike Beverly’s mother, my mother passed away at 74, the age I will be this year. Three of my older siblings all expired in their 60s and 70s. Will I follow this pattern of my kinship? 

        An elderly woman, a few years older than us, lived a few blocks away. After her husband passed away, she valiantly tried to stay in her house and keep it maintained, the yard neatly trimmed. She spent many hours kneeling by flowerbeds, pulling weeds and planting bulbs and tubers. But eventually, though she’s healthy, she sold her house and moved to Jamestown, an assisted living facility close by. We talk to her regularly, since she still attends our Sunday congregation. She seems happy and carefree, released from the solitary tending of her empty old house. Another family with five young children are now drastically remodeling her old house to make it their family home. They’ve completely rebuilt the exterior and interior, keeping only the basement intact, where the family lived during their extensive remodeling efforts. They will end up with a ‘new house’ for their family when they are finished, where our neighbor once maintained her old house.

        We sometimes watch the Jamestown Facebook Group, as it portrays to neighbors and family the activities of their senior friends and relatives. There are also elderly couples residing there. Could either of us actually live in a state of continual evening activities, such as line-dancing, throwing a beach ball around the room, dressing up for movie theme night, or a variety of other active diversions provided to the Jamestown residents by youthful volunteers? Are we facing such a future? 

# # #

        Our son and his wife, their four daughters, and a large dog have arrived for President’s Day weekend, staying with us in the basement, filling our old house again with noise and cheerful voices. It's comforting to know that during their visit, the darkness and gloom in the basement will evaporate, as the feelings of love and devotion that the family brought with them pervades our house. Our living room becomes the girl’s playroom. The Amazon Echo tiredly repeats some Disney music as the same response to each inquiring young voice. When the girls and dog run upstairs to wish us good night before their bedtime, it reminds me of our own family festivities which regularly took place in this house, so many years ago, as we surrounded our young family with the warmth this house afforded us.

        But it's clear to me now that the house is not the source of such warmth. After this holiday weekend, our son’s family will return to their own home. I will cheerlessly walk downstairs, close the vents, turn off all the lights, put away the toys, and the basement will return to the somberness it once was before our family arrived. I am again reminded it's the memories we have created during the past thirty-three years which turn this cold old house into our warm family home. And when our families visit, the house will rekindle those old memories, absorb the new ones we make with our grandchildren, and again surround us with the strength we need to keep us going through our winding-down years.

        If the furnace decides to give up before we’ve moved, no doubt we’ll do what we can to repair it, rather than too quickly relocate to a house where our long-lasting family memories haven’t yet pervaded its walls. If one of our old bodies doesn't continue to house its spirit, what should the strategy be when only one of us survives? Will the survivor stay in our old house alone, hoping the family will visit to warm the basement more often? Is there a retirement village less eventful with its resident’s evening activities? Perhaps if we decide to move to a different house, our families will work hard to fill the walls of that new house with memories to prompt the mind of the one of us who remains.