the_last_time ovenbird Today’s post funeral brunch was held in the home of the one who died, now a museum to fifty years of living. His children gathered in this place that witnessed their youth. accompanied by their own children, and cousins, and aunts, and uncles, and we all carried the knowledge that we will never be together in this house again. Sometimes a last thing happens without you knowing it will be the last, and sometimes the truth of finality is stark. Today it was a physical presence. Everyone said: “This will probably be the last time…” and then they reminisced about all the family holidays and dinners and gatherings. The prelude to my own wedding happened in this house. It’s where all the family photographs were taken. It’s where I spent my very last moments as an unmarried woman. Being so sprawling it was the default gathering place. The table could easily seat twenty. There was always enough single malt to go around. This house, now over one hundred years old, will likely be razed to the ground once it’s sold because no one cares about the history ingrained in the walls. The property is worth a fortune so a four-plex will be built on the land to maximize profits. A cousin who grew up here said, “I’ve been saying goodbye to it for the past two years.” When all the coffee was drunk and the kitchen was stacked with dirty dishes and everyone was busy mingling I snuck off on a private tour. I stood in the sunroom and looked out over the garden and the greenhouse; I wandered up the stairs and said hello to the grandfather clock that used to drive me insane with its hourly chiming when my husband and I were house sitting; I poked my head into the bedrooms but that felt too intimate and I left quickly; I touched the head of a wooden crow on the windowsill; I looked at the family photos still hanging on the walls and the rubber boots by the front door and the Cowichan sweater on a hook in the kitchen; I heard the hum of voices reverberating through the walls for the last time. With its final owner dead and gone this house is living its own last days. When it has donated all its organs and there’s nothing left but bones it will face demolition. I can almost feel it trembling, its voice sighing through the radiators, its rugs and upholstery already crumbling to dust. 260201 what's it to you? who go blather from