Traces

My grandparents beautiful dining room. I’m thankful to have many items from this house that keep, not just their memory, but part of their physical world alive.

In his book, The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton speaks of the house as a witness. He writes: “It has provided not only physical but also psychological sanctuary. It has been a guardian of identity. Over the years, its owners have returned from periods away and, on looking around them, remembered who they were”. [1] And yet, physical spaces are often considered quite separate from human life—merely utility or on the contrary, decoration. Rarely are they described as having influence or considered some-sort of collaborative force. Homes are quite literally part of us, sort of like an extension. They can aid us in our goals or subtly sabotage our efforts.

The last time I stayed in my grandparents’ house, which was built (by them) in 1955, was just after they died. The house, nestled among moss-covered rock and expansive oak trees, is where my mother and her three sisters were raised. I also lived there briefly, while I attended university. After class, I would walk up the winding hill to their house. Grandpa would build a fire that cracked and hissed as it infused the room with a smell of wood smoke, before settling into his armchair to read the paper. I would lay on the couch, listening to Grandma in the kitchen and watch the flames flicker until my eyes eventually closed. 

The house has always been one of my favourite places. Grandma’s exquisite taste in objects, art and furniture is showcased throughout their home. Her travels and adventures are on display through the wall hangings, photographs, pottery, and sculptures. But it is also the house itself that embodied their creative spirit through years of hand-crafted alterations, as well as every piece of saved string; the drawers of cleaned-and-dried plastic bags, pottery jars of elastics and twist ties, and the endless containers of saved miscellaneous materials. Born in the depression-era, their house was a meticulous assortment of useful and cared-for items, organized and waiting to be re-purposed. Their investment and attention to detail were infused in every corner of the house. Many renovation projects were done by my grandfather, a talented woodworker, and my grandmother, who would bring beauty and creativity to project. I remember when she re-modeled the fireplace—transforming a drab grey brick hole into a work of art through colourful tiles and paste.

My grandfather died in the spring and my grandmother joined him six months later on her 95th birthday. My family gathered in their home to begin the process of cleaning, clearing, and preparing the house to be sold. There is no doubt that this is a difficult, tiring and stressful process, but it can also be beautiful—a way to be together and say goodbye. After a hard day of reviewing, sorting & cleaning, we would gather around the fire and listen to music from my grandmother’s record collection and share memories that popped up while we were immersed in their belongings.

My sister and I had the task of sorting through my grandmother’s workroom. It was never called an office, but it did contain many years of work—mostly in the form of slides and journals from research in China, Japan, and Nigeria. As a painter, her desk was covered in jars of paint brushes, paints, pens, and various types of paper. I discovered all sorts of little objects that had been converted from their original purpose or created to achieve some other effect—sponges, sticks, bent twigs—known only by Grandma. Over the years shelves had been added to the walls and desks outfitted with additional levels by my grandfather. The space becoming a finely tuned extension of my grandmother’s body. It contained all her tools: cameras and lenses, resource books, paper, pens, clips, and brushes—everything she needed to create, to work.

I found it particularly difficult to leave that house, knowing I would never be back. Not just because of the memories I had of them in it, because in many ways, it was my grandparents. They were woven into every aspect of house for over seventy years. It held, protected, shaped, and witnessed them. So many traces of their bodies and their movements were visible in the stains on the carpet, the worn spots on the steps, the smell of the basement and the little things that they did during the day, like the hummingbird nest they brought in from the garden.

If we see space as entwined when someone is alive, what happens when that person dies, is the house is part of their remains?

[1] Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness (McClelland & Stewart, 2006), 11.