04/10/21 Weekend Grif.Net - Saying Goodbye to a Home
Robert Griffin
Tomorrow (Sunday) after our farewell at the church we founded, followed by ordination of the new pastor, and a huge dinner (we ARE Baptists and when we meet, a chicken must die), we will load a U-Haul with our pared-down furniture, 250 boxes, and head to our house in a retirement village 1128 miles away. We leave my wife’s family house to a local couple to be “lovingly gutted and modernized” for the next generation. Actually, it needs a TON of work, and the word “remodel” is far too kind a phrase for the required new basement floor and walls, new roof, new plumbing, new power service and wiring, and then all the cosmetic fixes on just about everything else.
Had we wanted to sell on a conventional loan, contractors estimated a $60,000 minimum cost just to bring it to code for someone to get a loan. So when offered (before we’d even decided on how we were going to sell) a lower but fair price in cash without any upgrading needed on our part, we thought it must truly be a “God-thing” (hope you understand that concept – He’s done a lot for us in the past 51 years together; He deserves credit for this one, too). And the wife used the covid-lockdown to begin sorting, down-sizing, boxing, and preparing for a grand moving-sale at rock-bottom prices. The April 12 closing here is exactly 6 months since we made the firm decision to retire and sell.
It IS hard to leave. My wife’s family bought and renovated this house in the early 1950’s. She lived in it until leaving for college. They built a new house but rented out this house until 1988 when we moved our family from Texas to Wyoming. It has been “ours” for 33 years. Lots of memories. Lots of history. Lots of love.
Many people grieve over the loss of a house – both the physical place as well as the people and feelings associated with it – and often wonder what they could have done to find more meaningful closure. So here are suggestions for saying goodbye to a home and grieving for places of the past:
· VISIT: If this is not your primary residence, find an opportunity to visit one last time. Be prepared though, there’s a chance it will seem altered and different than the home which once held lots of laughter, fun, insight, love, comfort & great memories of times well spent together.
· DOCUMENT: Take photographs of different rooms and significant places. Family candid shots, pictures of rooms before/after they are emptied, and include shots of the neighborhood.
· CEREMONIAL GOODBYE: Before moving, share as a family your favorite memories from the time in the home. Then bless and release the home to the new owners, praying for them all the good times and great memories ahead.
· SPEND TIME: Spend purposeful and meaningful time in the home. Take time in each room and let the memories flow. Place your hands on the walls, doors, windows or special areas.
· LEAVE YOUR MARK: Carve your initials in a tree, write a message in a door jam, make handprints in cement, or bury a time capsule in the backyard.
· CARE FOR IT: If you are selling the home and moving like we are, actively love that house by cleaning and caring for it so that the place would be infused with a blessing to the new owners.
· LEAVE NOTES: After years of occupancy YOU might know secrets, noises, spaces, sounds and a note to give the next occupants the benefits of your experience will settle your mind that you have done all you could do. And it might answer questions they have and not make them fret over minor issues.
· REDUCE CONFLICTED FEELINGS: You have LOVED this old house, but now feel free to love a NEW home with little looking back or regrets. Today is the first day of a whole new set of memories in a new place.
· TAKE SOMETHING WITH YOU: Unearth a plant, a stone from the front pathway, unscrew a doorknob, or . . .
~~
Dr Bob Griffin
"Jesus Knows Me, This I Love!"