(no subject)
There were tornadoes in my husband's hometown yesterday!
This is his aunt's beautiful Victorian house, the one I always wanted to buy from her and turn into a bed-and-breakfast.
The house has been condemned and will be demolished tomorrow.
Photo tricities.com.
More photos are in this flickr set. There are some really excellent photos in that set.
I've only been in that house a few times, always at holidays and always with great enjoyment. In the parlor there's a beautiful antique Brunswick pool table; we would place a piece of plywood over it, cover that with a tablecloth, and eat dinner, then clear the table and have a family pool tournament. I remember, two Christmases ago, napping in the living room with my head in my husband's lap watching the World's Strongest Man competition while our niece took pictures of everything using the digital camera we'd bought her for Christmas. Donna would always decorate the entire house for Christmas, including the most beautiful Christmas trees I've ever seen. And everywhere you looked were little carousel horses - that was her thing, carousel horses.
By law, because the house is condemned, she can't go back in to get her things. Not the pool table, not her beautiful dishes or her carousel horses or her clothes or anything.
When we were working on houses in Louisiana, I always had a feeling that when people said "Well, at least nobody was hurt", they were denying a certain grief that came with losing everything. I'll never forget the Lakeview house. And while these are very different disasters, very different circumstances - my head connects the two, and my heart breaks a little more for the Lakeview family, and a little more for Donna, because I've seen what it is to lose everything, a life's possessions out for the front loader. It is absolutely a grace that she was not hurt, but there is a certain grief that I feel surprisingly deeply this evening - for the pool table, the carousel horses, Christmas together in that drafty old house - for family memories and for all the love that had gone into turning that house into a jewel, a place full of personality, always ready for the family to come together.
It's very strange watching a family dwelling on the news. It's even stranger knowing that the next time you go home, it won't be there anymore. We'll have family holidays all together again, in another family home, but that one - that one was special.
This is his aunt's beautiful Victorian house, the one I always wanted to buy from her and turn into a bed-and-breakfast.
The house has been condemned and will be demolished tomorrow.
Photo tricities.com.
More photos are in this flickr set. There are some really excellent photos in that set.
I've only been in that house a few times, always at holidays and always with great enjoyment. In the parlor there's a beautiful antique Brunswick pool table; we would place a piece of plywood over it, cover that with a tablecloth, and eat dinner, then clear the table and have a family pool tournament. I remember, two Christmases ago, napping in the living room with my head in my husband's lap watching the World's Strongest Man competition while our niece took pictures of everything using the digital camera we'd bought her for Christmas. Donna would always decorate the entire house for Christmas, including the most beautiful Christmas trees I've ever seen. And everywhere you looked were little carousel horses - that was her thing, carousel horses.
By law, because the house is condemned, she can't go back in to get her things. Not the pool table, not her beautiful dishes or her carousel horses or her clothes or anything.
When we were working on houses in Louisiana, I always had a feeling that when people said "Well, at least nobody was hurt", they were denying a certain grief that came with losing everything. I'll never forget the Lakeview house. And while these are very different disasters, very different circumstances - my head connects the two, and my heart breaks a little more for the Lakeview family, and a little more for Donna, because I've seen what it is to lose everything, a life's possessions out for the front loader. It is absolutely a grace that she was not hurt, but there is a certain grief that I feel surprisingly deeply this evening - for the pool table, the carousel horses, Christmas together in that drafty old house - for family memories and for all the love that had gone into turning that house into a jewel, a place full of personality, always ready for the family to come together.
It's very strange watching a family dwelling on the news. It's even stranger knowing that the next time you go home, it won't be there anymore. We'll have family holidays all together again, in another family home, but that one - that one was special.