MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE

My aunt emailed me the other day and told me my grandmother's house was on the market in Lima, Ohio.  I had two grandmothers in Lima, and they both had inviting and memorable houses, houses I loved visiting when I was a child.  They were both two story houses and seemed massive to me from a child's perspective, although the details regarding my grandmother's house now on the market list its square footage as just over 1600 square feet.

I was fortunate to visit my grandmother's house when I was in Lima recently.  My cousin Jim and I knocked on the door and were greeted by a very puzzled woman who lived there.  Obviously, we were strangers to her and she was probably expecting a sales pitch of some sort.  Instead, we told her this was once our grandmother's house, and we would love to come in and look around.  I don't know about Jim, but I wanted to recapture some of the magic of my childhood there in that house.  And while I loved being able to walk around inside that once warm and inviting space, the magic was definitely gone.  The house was mostly empty, filled only with boxes, junk and very little furniture.  The rooms were dark, the draperies closed,  I'm not sure what the story was, but since the house is now on the market, perhaps they were getting ready to stage the place in order to sell it. 

Since I've been back in my own home in Callifornia, I've thought about why the place seemed so cold and devoid of magic.  It wasn't just that the place was run down, looking nothing like the home my grandmother kept so beautifully, nor dark as opposed to the bright, cheerful home where she lived. I now realize the magic was gone because the people I loved were not there.  My grandmother, my aunt Marcie, and for a while my uncle Charlie, were not there.  The kitchen did not smell of cookies baking or pot roast simmering.  The living room did not smell of furniture polish or my aunt Marcie's perfumed stationery.  The bathroom did not exude that distinctive aroma of Dove soap. And my grandmother was not there welcoming me with her smile and a big hug and saying what she always said, "Make yourself at home; what's mine is yours."

My cousin Jim and I asked the woman what she thought the value of the home was, and she suggested a price of about $40,000 to $60,000.  We were stunned.  In California, $40,000 might buy you a chicken coop, but little else.  Each of us had the thought that at that price we could purchase it, fix it up, and rent it out, except neither of us lives nearby, so that would not work.  The list price today is actually $75,000 and I will be curious to see if the owners get that price.

I would love to go back in 5 years and see if the new owners have fixed it up, though the area looks a bit run down and I imagine it's even possible that in 5 to 10 years the house will be torn down.  It was built in 1921, and is in need of much repair.  So while I hope someone purchases it and tends to it lovingly, for now I will just have to hang onto my memories and keep an image in my mind of what my grandmother's house looked like - and more importantly, felt like -  in its heyday.