A Home that will no longer be

I came to Mexico because the home I grew up (from about when I was 11 till I was 27) will no longer be home to my mother. My uncle designed the house and my dad built it. It has been full of good and bad memories as any home but I will dare (but not really) say most of them were good not only to me and my brother but I also believe this house has been home to many many people.

At least for some of my friends while growing up, this house was synonym of warmth and coziness. I have memories of my friends coming over and opening the fridge, eating and laughing in the kitchen, having pajama parties and finally parties as we started to worry about getting zits and using bras.

The spirit of my dad (and I mean his presence) is very much in this house. To some of their friends this house has been memorable too. I remember people coming over for lunch and staying over till early morning, people that I wasn't related to at all but I used to call them uncles or aunts.

I wish I could find the original blueprints of this house. At some point my uncle wanted for it to have water cascading through a hallway, fishys and a glass floor. My mother objected to this. "Are you going to clean this and come feed the fish everyday?" She might have said to my uncle. "I didn't think so either", she might have replied to my uncle's silent smile.

This decision marks an end in my family's life. It probably means we're all moving forward and leaving the death of my father behind. His input in our lives was phenomenal and I am still trying to accommodate the loss as the years go by. Yes, I miss him but I feel we need to do this for my mother's future. I believe she's a strong woman but this house, all this wood and these huge windows are so much part of her that it's almost the other way round.

What I love is that we are a tight unit of people doing this together. Nonetheless I will try to bring more people to this process. All my extended uncles and aunts, all the sisters and brothers my brother and I have and I hope I can invite to this process or to her new place, to start creating new memories, filing what seems like a void now with laughter and probably the temporary sorrow of leaving "home" behind.