The Dead Woman's House

As I often do, I had breakfast this morning by the picture window overlooking the big birch out back and the bird feeder. With the endless rains this week, I haven’t had a chance to fill the feeder. Several birds flew up, inspected for a couple of seconds and flew off, disappointed I am sure. This reminded me of the dead woman’s house in East Lansing.

Several years ago, I owned a shipping company and part of the business was estate work. I had gotten a call from someone’s daughter and arrangements were made to come to her parent’s house, package up items and ship. She had dropped off the key and on the appointed morning, I arrived ahead of my crew.

The craftsman style house was a time capsule, the décor frozen at a certain period in history. The husband had been a professor and he and his wife were travelers, mainly to the Orient. Artifacts were abundant in the form of art, photographs, sculptures, rugs. Books concerning Asia and Near East filled the many built-in bookshelves. I could see that the daughter (and probably others) had gone through and mined their treasures: tagged piles were on the floor lined against the walls and on tables. In the basement was a quintessential 1960’s rec room, his domain: with its wood paneling, ping pong table, slide carousel projector, portable screen and rack of photographic slides, no doubt from their many travels. A side room with a door to the outside was hers: a potting room with various gardening projects still on the bench. Because of this, I think he had died first.

It looked like not much had changed inside for many years. Nothing seemed modern, the walls needed paint. Photographs that had hung on walls for years left pale shadows of their shape when taken down. On the kitchen table and counters was her china. Typical of that house design, there was a window over the kitchen sink. Her view for all those years was a side garden dominated by a large tree and a bird feeder. A cardinal was there, flitting back and forth from a nearby shrub. The feeder was empty and I am sure the cardinal was thinking “Why is this empty? Where is that woman?”

So this is how it will end, I thought during that day of packing. A house stuck in time filled with favorite and irreplaceable items collected over the years. Talismans that trigger memories. Why change? There’s comfort with familiar sameness. Why paint the walls? No energy to do so yourself anymore. Can’t afford to have it done. Don’t want to bother the kids. Besides, the uproar, the chaos. Oh, it’s all fine. Just vacuum around the edges. Remember where we got that statue? And then, the other half is gone and you are asking and answering those questions only in your mind. You simplify and do less but the things you enjoy and have done so for years. Digging a weed. Put in a few annuals and a tomato plant. Fill the feeder. At least the birds need you

Washing up after breakfast, gazing out the window over my kitchen sink, I wondered: what will the strangers who come to clear our house see in what we have left behind? Those wall colors are clearly out of date. Good grief, a CD cabinet. A wall of books. Was she a professor? Lots of stuff on the walls. Did he do the artwork, take the photographs? They loved cats and wildlife. No children evidently. There are gardens. Look, out back by that ancient birch with an empty bird feeder. A cardinal wondering where they are.