Departure

“Here, I’ll take that”, my son-in-law, Brad, instructs gently, snatching the patent-leather tote bag off the steps. I avoid looking down the empty hallway as I shut the door, sliding my key into the lock and turning it. I feel a jolt as the deadbolt clicks; I will never return to unlock it.

***

Settling in to the passenger seat of the hatchback, I buckle my seatbelt. Brad presses my tote bag into my lap before closing the car door. I tuck the tote bag by my feet as Brad crams himself awkwardly into the back seat, knees and elbows splayed to accommodate the boxes and canvas bags we hadn’t been able to fit in the moving truck. I would sit back there myself, and I tell him as much, but he insists. I don’t fight him on it; it’s a long drive to the city.

Most of the neighbourhood’s old guard has already moved on to live with family or in nursing homes in the cities. An unluckier few have already passed on. The only one of us left will be Hetty, now. She was the youngest of us, though having recently celebrated her 73rd birthday, it feels odd to say so. She should still have a good few years left out here. God willing.

Patricia who had been the first to leave the old neighbourhood, called yesterday to reassure me that I’m fortunate. I suppose it’s true that I’d be suffering doubly in the assisted living facility, where her son dropped her off and now visits her just once or twice a month. She tells me I’m lucky to be at home with Candice and my grandchildren; but where I’m headed isn’t home. Not to me.

Home is the place that my father and his brothers built from an old wartime building kit, identical to a dozen others lined up on our little gravel road. It was the same home where my mother, sisters and I would sing church songs as we hung up the laundry on the line. A home, my home, that had held me after my divorce and the turmoil that followed. The home I had been born in--the home I had wanted to die in.

My daughter, Candice, sits in the driver’s seat, and the engine starts to hum. “All set?”, she asks, but none of us answer. I peer out the window at my old, sturdy house before it disappears from view for the last time. My mother and father are as much a part of this place as the rafters or the old green shutters. I’ll carry them with me, of course, my parents; my memory’s not gone yet. But it feels like I’m taking them to a place they have no business being, somewhere foreign, where they don’t quite fit.

As we roll out, I do my best to commit to memory the rows of wood-paneled houses. My eyes cling to each thing: the quaint gardens, mailboxes and hanging birdhouses. Just ordinary things, whose familiarity I now realize I have taken for granted. I take in the foliage of the maple trees, dripping their vibrant oranges, golds and crimsons. The colours are always striking this time of year--but they’ve put on a particularly fine show, their final bow as I make my exit.

***

As we merge into the exit lane and drive down the off-ramp, Brad suggests we grab a bite to eat. We park the over-stuffed car and shuffle ourselves out onto the sidewalk, taking the time to stretch our legs as we survey our options.

It rained here today, sometime before our arrival. In the city, it turns out, everything is louder after it rains. Speeding rubber tires grip wet pavement; water rushes beyond the grates of storm drains; wind pushes itself through streets walled-in by tall buildings, like breath through a low, howling whistle. Already, I find myself longing for the quiet of home, where the only sound, if I were there to listen, would be a soft squelching with each step, as my soles pressed upon the ground, wringing it out like an earthen sponge.

We eventually settle on a small restaurant in a pedestrian square, away from traffic. Candice and I select a booth by a window while Brad heads to the counter to order. Candice sits down next to me and sits quietly for a moment, before taking my hand. “I’m glad you decided to come,” she tells me, “it’ll mean a lot to Livie and Warren. It means a lot to me.” She is doing her best to smile, but her lips are pressed tight, slightly twisted, in the same way they did when she was a little girl. I give her hand a squeeze. “Me too” I say, and it’s not quite a lie.

Since my fall six weeks ago, I know my mortality has been as much on her mind as it has been on mine. I was lucky this time, but these sorts of things “signaled terminal decline”, the doctor told us, and it was time to start making plans. This was a kinder way of saying I could die soon. Not because I am ill, but because I am old.

And so these past few weeks, I have packed my life into boxes. Many of these things, in all likelihood, will now never know the outside of a box again; they’ll be hidden away somewhere in storage, at least until I’m long gone and my daughters are able to shed the guilt of getting rid of them. They needn’t feel that guilt, not really. My things have been reliable, trustworthy props in the backdrop of my life for over three quarters of a century. But now, outside the cupboards and shelves they once lived in, they are just things. Just Tupperware and kitcsh.

***

The car pulls into the driveway of Candice and Brad’s semi-detached home. I see the front door open just a crack, and two small heads pop out tentatively: my grandchildren, Livie and Warren. We step out of the car, and as recognition gives way to excitement, Livie throws open the door with all her eight-year-old might, running down the steps to greet us. Warren toddles behind her and my eldest daughter, Linda, trails after him. Livie crashes into me, wrapping my legs in her arms. She looks up and greets me with a wide, open-mouthed grin: “Come see your room, Gramma”. She tugs on my hand and I follow.

***

We have all settled into the kitchen, the day approaching its close after an afternoon of unpacking. Every surface is occupied by all manner of things -- A set of silver candlestick holders that my parents had received on their wedding day; the ballpoint pen I was gifted on my last day at work; an egg timer that sat atop my stove for many years; and so forth.

Somehow, Brad has dozed off sitting at the table, his head propped up against the wall. I watch my daughters laugh as they rifle through a box of faded posters that they had taped up in their bedroom as teens. Livie and Warren sit on the floor, eating pizza off their great-grandmother’s plates. Somehow, I miss home, and I am home, all at once.