Paperwork: Thinking about memories that will linger in empty spaces

I’m stuck in an empty room.

I’ve been here for a few weeks now and it’s hard to leave.

This started as my sister and I watched two hard-working men load up a truck with furniture. The furniture belonged to our aunt who recently passed away.

Family and friends took some items, other items are being sold but couches and bedroom sets, lamps and tables were being loaded into a Habitat for Humanity truck – to help some other family.

After the truck drove away, I walked back through the empty rooms. Aunt Ene’s home was now a house. Her little world was gone.

Empty space. The words felt sadly final as I stood in her living room and remembered her sitting in her new comfy chair where she spent a lot of time. It was easy seeing her sitting there – smiling, talking, laughing.

And then it was hard. Sad. Suddenly that word “gone” hit home. Gone forever. The empty space would belong to someone else soon.

But here I am, stuck in that empty room. Lingering with memories of how Aunt Ene kept everything orderly, neat and inviting. How she surrounded herself with what she loved and displayed memories of the husband and son she missed so much.

Standing there I realized there are at least two ways to look at empty space.

I saw rooms full of memories, walls haunted by personal history and carpeting familiar with the tread of daily routines. I saw what it used to be.

I was saying goodbye to all that. But soon someone else would be standing there ... saying hello. They will walk through each room imagining new colors, with furniture that fits their lifestyle. They will create their own paths through the carpeting.

The space invites new beginnings and change. The empty house will become a home again. It will be exciting. Not sad.

That’s the way it should be, yes? I’m sure Aunt Ene would want that.

Her home had a limited history. She lived there alone. Many homes, though, have a huge history, where families, even generations, have survived good times and bad.

It’s not hard to imagine others, like me, standing in such empty spaces. It must be painful saying goodbye to homes where you grew up, where you can still see scratches you put into banisters and dents in the walls. Each with its own story.

I’ve driven by weathered, abandoned homes and wonder about the stories inside. I wonder about the empty spaces still waiting for the hope and joy that comes with new beginnings, new voices, fresh laughter.

Poet and journalist Joyce Kilmer illustrated this well in his poem “The House with Nobody In It” with these words:

“But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life, that has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife, a house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet, is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.”

So, I am still in that empty space where Aunt Ene rested in her chair but glad to know her house won’t remain empty.

And I’m doing more than seeing her there. I also can hear telling me stories of growing up.

I am remembering how she was the one filling empty spaces with her plans and dreams. And how she made a home for family.

• Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His Paperwork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail The Times, 110 W. Jefferson St., Ottawa, IL 61350.