Honesty Hour: Closing a Chapter

Disclaimer: I wrote Honesty Hour: Closing a Chapter about 5 months ago but I’m just finally sharing it now. Sometimes you write things but it doesn’t feel like the right time to share it. Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of my grandmother’s passing & we’re about to sell the house. Today feels like the right time to share it with y’all…

---

Honesty Hour: My family has spent the majority of the last six months emptying out my Grandpa & Grandma’s house after my Grandma’s death last summer.   

It took 5 of us 5 hours to not even fully clean out the kitchen. We have spent days working in the basement trying to clean it up & out. We’ve made countless trips to Goodwill, the dump, & the storage unit we’ve rented to store the rest of it.

It’s one of those things where you work and work for hours for many, many days, you get a bunch of stuff done & you think you’re making serious progress but every time you turn around there’s more stuff & more work to do.

It’s been exhausting. Physically, of course. Some days we have done manual labor (have you ever ripped up carpet tiles or laminate floors & carried them down the driveway to a dump truck?). Other days we emptied kitchen cabinets or closets and packed up boxes full of trinkets for hours. But it’s also been emotionally exhausting. It’s hard for me to even describe what it’s like but I’m going to try…

My grandparents lived in that house my entire life; before I was born actually. I cleaned out all of my grandmother’s closets full of clothes (she had 3, kid you not). I packed away the dishware that we have eaten on my whole life. I rolled up the living room rug that has been there for eternity and heave-hoed it into a dumpster with my sister. I filled tons of boxes with stuff from their house.

Sometimes it felt like it was no big deal. Just packing items, checking it off the to-do list. It didn’t feel like I was in the process of packing up my grandparent’s house.

Other times, I would have to completely step out of my mind because I was acutely aware of what was taking place. I remember sometimes thinking, “Grandma isn’t in the living room like she usually is. It feels like she could still just be sitting in there.” And then I walk into the living room, and she’s not there. And there I am carrying a box full of her items to Goodwill.

It can be exhausting to go through all of the stuff from 25 years of them living in that house & constantly be making decisions on where it should go. Then at times playing the waiting game, while you communicate with other family members about an item & whether or not they want it which determines what pile you place that item in. The back & forth of that can be exhausting too.  

---

I distinctly remember working over there one day with my mom, sister, & one of my aunts. I was boxing up a bunch of items–like 4 big boxes full–& not liking it at all. My mom or my aunt asked how I was doing, progress-wise, and I said “Questioning every life choice that led me to this moment.” (LOL) My aunt said, “Oh, it wasn’t a choice. You were born into this family.”

Truth.

You know what else is true? I wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else.

As tiring as it was, I’m glad that I was able to be there.

I’m glad that I was able to be there for all 3 of my grandparent’s last months & days.

I’m glad that I was able to be there to clean out the house over a 6 month time period.

I’m glad I was able to work my butt off alongside my family to clean out the house.

I’m glad I was able to make those memories with them—good & bad—and not just be standing on the outside of the entire process hearing about it later.

I’m glad I was able to live it and experience it all.

---

Losing one grandparent while the other is still alive is hard enough.

I remember coming home from the grocery store with my grandmother and not hearing my Grandpa’s footsteps as he walked from the living room to the kitchen to help put up groceries. The saying “Silence is deafening”? Well, the silence felt like a punch in the stomach.

Having one empty seat at the holidays and family get-togethers? Heartbreaking.

That was when I still had the other half of my grandparents here with me.

Now, I don’t.

The loss of the second grandparent is so much bigger than just losing that grandparent. When you still have the second grandparent, you have the house they live in, you only have one empty seat at the table instead of two, you have that connection to your grandparents, you still have the matriarch that, in a way, is holding the family together. It feels like she was the glue that held our family together and now she’s gone.

When you lose the second grandparent, you lose all of that.

For my whole life, my grandparents were also my neighbors. So to make it all even stranger for my immediate family, we’ll have new neighbors. New neighbors living in my grandparent’s house. They’ll move in & make updates & change landscaping & attend our neighborhood meetings and parties. They’ll be our new neighbors. Because my grandparents died and it’s time to sell the house.

So while I’m not only saying goodbye to my grandmother, I’m also saying goodbye to an entire part of my life. My family is saying goodbye to an entire season. I’m saying goodbye to the only house I’ve ever known them to live in. I’ll forever have the memories but I’ll have no place to go anymore.

In a way, it’s felt like I’ve had to and will continue to grieve the loss of so much more because this loss is so much bigger and farther reaching than when my grandfather died.

It’s a loss of a part of my life. It’s a loss of my routines. It’s a loss of my childhood and part of my adult life. It’s all a loss.

It’s the closing of a (massive) chapter.

---

I’ll take the memories with me as we put the For Sale sign in the front yard and welcome new neighbors.

The memories of…

Competing with my cousins over who is featured on the fridge more.

Going to get spare towels in the laundry room so we could go swing on the green front porch swing while my grandmother sang “Swing low, sweet chariot”.

Running to Uncle Sam’s getting my grandparents some lunch.

Trips to Kroger on Wednesday’s.

Hearing my grandfather’s footsteps as he walked into the kitchen to help unload groceries.

Sharing desserts I made with them.

Seeing my grandfather working in the yard making it look beautiful even though he probably shouldn’t have been out there in the first place.

Hearing my grandmother say “Heeeeyyy” back to me after I said that as soon as she answered the phone.

My grandfather saying “You’re a jewel, Meredith.”

Picking up my grandmother on Friday mornings to go get her hair done at 10 a.m..

Easter and birthdays and Christmas Eve dinner spent at the breakfast room table & the dining room table that was sure to fall apart at any moment and in the living room on that sofa that is a solid 50 years old that my grandmother would never get rid of.

Standing in the kitchen talking with my grandparents about everything and nothing.

So many good memories that I will have and cherish forever as we walk into the next season of our life.

Love,

Looking for more Honesty Hours? Click here and here.