The Death of Childhood

Last week, I was informed that eventually, my parents will sell the house I grew up in and decamp somewhere else. The precise location has not yet been decided, but the important thing to remember is that they will not remain in my hometown. The trigger for this life change will be death of my grandmother, who is (after my parents), my final immediate relation left in this small town.

Now, I’ve been told some version of this before. But usually, my parents say that they’re going to winter somewhere in the south and summer in our own version of Tom Sawyer’s St. Petersburg. It was also made worse by the fact that last week, my grandmother was in the hospital and we weren’t sure if she would be coming home. Since then, she has mostly recovered and is back at home, but the reality is that she will die and at the age of 85, it will be sooner rather than later.

This town that I grew up in has been the home of my mother’s side of my family for a 150 years. But my immediate family has all moved away. When my grandmother dies and my parents move, I will have no real reason to go back. I’ve spent ten years building a life I love in another city, but my roots have always been there.

It’s childish, I know. But I’ve been lucky and have led an incredibly stable full of love and laughter. The loss of my childhood home is a loss that everyone suffers at some point in their life. And of course I realize that home is really about the people, and not the places, that we share it with.

It still sucks.