House Hunting on Memory Lane
We left the apartment on Thursday to distract ourselves. Our dream house - a mere 40-minute walk away - loomed over every task and work meeting we’d had that week. Over the last few days, we’d caught each other Googling coffee shops and walking routes around the house we believed was already ours.
Offer night be damned.
Me thinking about moving into the house all week
Perhaps hilariously, this was only the third house we’d seen.
It became clear after our first showing that I have the propensity to fall in love with every house I walk through. Each new entranceway is an invitation to a different life, and my imagination dips into them like I’m trying gelato flavours on wooden sticks. As I peer into closets and touch walls, I craft a series of fake memories.
Here, I think, is where the dog will love to lay.
Whenever I catch eyes with Mark, I see he’s doing the same.
The vision isn’t always optimistic. I look for the parts of the house that will become the most annoying. A strange jutted wall that I stub my toe on endlessly, the hill outside I’d have to push the stroller up, the wood floors that creak when my husband wakes up in the middle of the night, to pee, or the dozen too many stairs at the front we fight over shovelling.
When we leave to deliberate, I picture a thousand little versions of us settled in tiny dollhouses. From above, it’s impossible to say which one is the happiest.
I could be the quirky artist in the tall, pointy Victorian home. I’d collect vintage furniture, take up embroidery, and learn to make scones.
In the steel box, I’ll be the chic Torontonian with slicked-back bobs and a rotation of takeout trays I toss on my way to local underground concerts.
In the residential fixer-upper, I see book clubs, throw pillows, and cookie exchange parties. No corner is left without a knitted blanket or trinket from a neighbourhood friend.
Despite the desire for a blank slate, I find myself the most drawn to places that resemble my childhood home. Bungalows with creaky wood floors, fireplaces, and space for a china cabinet in the dining room. Outside I picture the lilac tree, hydrangeas, and roses that I’ll plant. My first thought when I enter a new living room is where will we put the Christmas tree?
I’m chasing after visions of my grandmother’s house.
My grandmother has been our family’s Christmas matriarch since I was little. She would always insist on a big affair for the six of us. My grandfather and uncles would grumble at the formality when she and I got dolled up for dinner. As a child, I loved my velour and ribbon-covered holiday dresses almost as much as I loved the heaps of mashed potatoes.
It always felt like an event.
Over time, my mom has taken over the brunt of the holiday setup. It’s a beautiful dedication to my grandmother that the rest of the family plays along with. This year, however, she couldn’t remember what day Christmas was. We were caught planning a charade for a woman who barely recognized the attempt.
My grandmother’s memory has been deteriorating since I left Ottawa, but so too has her ability to care. There are moments when her mind flips into tiny pockets of understanding, but even then she can’t be bothered to be excited about the season. While my mom stressed over making our holidays special, my grandmother stared out to nowhere. Not even the promise of a big Christmas dinner could motivate her to get up and shower.
Her days of making new family memories are seemingly over.
How I remember my grandma at Christmas
I’ve heard dementia described as a wobbly bookshelf. When the shelf shakes, newer memories at the top fall out before the older ones at the bottom. With a huge mess of paper on the floor, it can become confusing to put details back in order. Just when you think you’ve reorganized the volumes, more tumble down to join the pile.
When I go home to Ottawa, my grandmother likes to ask three main questions:
Are you married?
Where do you live in Toronto?
Are you moving back to Ottawa?
The former she’s slowly pieced together over the last year and a half. My mom has strategically left photos of me in my white dress around the house, encouraging that memory to stick. In conversation, a few details will float back to her, and she’ll recite the key facts. It was in Nashville. We had dinner later.
The last question is the hardest one to broach. As we’ve been shopping around, it’s occurred to me that my grandmother will never see this house. Not only will she not make it to Toronto, but there will be very few instances where she can wrap her mind around me having a husband and being a homeowner. She won’t be able to help us decorate for Christmas or create the kind of space I so clearly am looking to emulate.
Me in any library
The house we fell in love with is in a similar state of confusion.
The owner, the agent told us, had died. He hadn’t paid for parking permits in almost a decade, and the green shag carpeting throughout was enough to extrapolate the level of care he put into his home. Beyond the original fireplace and grand entranceway, the rest was a blank slate. My imagination, however, was aided by the presence of antique furniture that my grandmother would have gushed over.
I started to fill the gaps in ways she no longer can.
When Thursday came we tried - and failed - to not get our hopes up. We thought we might be the luckiest couple in the world who got the first house they bid on. In between offers we brainstormed about the future reno and braced ourselves for the cue to start celebrating.
In the end, we lost it.
Our realtor told us not to take it too hard. More inventory is coming, he assured us, and since Thursday we’ve seen about seven more places. Admittedly, it’s been tough to let go of the dream we spun around that first house. It feels impossible to imagine a life somewhere and then shut the door on it completely.
While it’s sad, not getting that house is nothing compared to the loss of the person who would have appreciated the aesthetic the most.
I’m grappling with the fact that we’re entering a new chapter right as my grandmother is closing one. This story will never fit in her collection. Any new volume I spin - doing renovations, my first novel, having children - won’t be something she’ll have the chance to read.
Our search is at once exhilarating and a reminder that life is changing. So, the least I can do is find a house that she would have liked to remember. Specifically, one with a clear place to put our Christmas tree.
