Leaving # 37

I removed my mezuzahs from the doorposts and turned in my key. I choked up when I started to tell our buyers that there has always been joy and warmth within these walls. Twenty-six years ago, I began looking for a house in Cambridge. Our daughter was already in middle school in this city and I yearned for a quality of life where kids could gradually be more independent as they walked to Armando’s pizza on Fridays at noon, signed up for an art class at the gallery down the street or boarded the bus from Huron Avenue into Harvard Square. When we found this house and settled in twenty-four years ago, our six year-old son stood outside the corner drug store with me and absorbed his new neighborhood thoughtfully. “Everyone doesn’t look the same here…” he noticed. As time passed, our home became a haven for children after school. Outside the driveway entryway, we had an unlocked closet that we referred to as the sports closet because we filled it with tennis rackets, butterfly nets, croquet mallets, hula hoops, roller blades, soccer cleats and cross country skis. We also hung pairs of hockey skates from nails on the beams. In one of the skates, we concealed a spare key to the house. Our kids’ classmates knew about this key, as did my brother and sister-in-law who sometimes drove from Manhattan after bedtime on a Friday night. When their children were small, a weekend playing in our yard was like a weekend in the country. Our older son’s classmates would congregate late in the day in our kitchen and forage around in our snack cabinets. Then they would retreat to the third floor to write songs, strum guitars or practice lines. On Halloween, our younger son’s friends would eat a light supper before putting on make up and costumes and convening outside our front gate in an exuberant posse of superheroes and ogres. All those years ago, I remember that my dream was to create a family home. Now my husband wanders from empty room to empty room. For him, the floors echo with the footsteps of his laughing grandchildren and the scampering of their dogs, Fiona and Charli. He also hears the voices of those who are no longer with us: his father reminiscing at his fiftieth birthday party, his mother opening gifts at a Mother’s Day brunch, my grandmother exclaiming “…everything is perfection!” at Thanksgiving dinner, our brother-in-law John pulling out cigars at a graduation celebration, our Sheltie, Sophie barking at the ringing telephone, the ice maker, the blow dryer and the crackle of aluminum foil. Some of our relatives ask if they can stop by the house to say “good-bye”. A nephew talks about making music in the early hours of the morning while a niece enjoyed the bridal showers. We were lucky to have two young families live with us in this place and to welcome two newborns with their fresh softness and gentle caresses. We did have quiet evenings, just the two of us stretched out on the cozy living room sofas reading books or sitting at the edge of our seats in the conservatory, watching playoff basketball. But we also hosted large events: parent/teacher potlucks, fundraisers, Seders that required multiple tables, and my father’s 90th birthday party. Not long after we moved into this house, we received a handwritten note from a man who had grown up here. He recalled hiding behind the balusters on the landing and watching his parents waltz through the foyer right into the dining room. His words exuded a sense of happiness that I have felt at this address. There is an old saying: “…if these walls could talk…” I firmly believe that these walls harbor positive tales that go back over one hundred years. As I close the door and get into my car for the last time, I will admit that the tears are coming because the curtain is closing on this act, but I know that it is already opening on the next one.