My parents are moving house into my grandmother’s house. This is a house she lived in for something like sixty years, and for most of those, alone and with failing eyesight and hearing. It’s really awful to be hit by a triple hit every time you move a bench or wipe a wall to be reminded:
- This is Grandma’s house, and there’s a memory there, some part of your life as a child you can’t help but re-experience.
- You left her alone in this place, you didn’t visit enough, you didn’t spend enough time with her.
- Look at the dirt, the grease, the signs of neglect that are here, because you didn’t care enough about your grandmother to come help out.
Today, I’m going to be scubbing walls with sugar soap and trying to listen to music. If you don’t see me online until the afternoon or evening, that’s why.