Memories of my Dad in the house he never got to see

by Cathleen Collins

Realtor, Staging Consultant

Author website

Remember Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? Well, Broker Greg’s theory is Men are Sellers, Women are Buyers. His observation is that prominent in a selling couple is the man — dickering over commission then exacting justification for those commissions; and when offers come in it will be he who will haggle over the details. On the other hand, when shopping for the new house, he doesn’t want to shop: “Garage for my stuff? Fridge for my beer? Sold!”.

So Thursday night, Husband Greg was perplexed. First, he surprised himself by doing physical labor. This is against his credo — the human mind is supposed to engineer methods to circumvent physical toil. But it was time for me to unstage Oregon. It closed yesterday and I had to get all my stuff out. When I buy staging inventory, I’m always careful to limit the heft of each item to something I can move in and out of the house without (Greg’s) help. However, I’m just recently recovered from pneumonia — a solid month of complete bed-rest. So there was Greg, huffing and puffing with the grunt work as I daintily packed my pashminas and platters.

But what really floored Greg happened after he had packed up our last load, while we were sitting in the drive-through line at Wendy’s, waiting to celebrate with Frostys. And I broke down crying. Through my sobs I hiccuped that I would probably never be inside of 718 West Oregon again. This brought my dear articulate Greg to speechless amazement.

We Realtors know we bring value to the real estate transaction… each in our own particular way — our value proposition; but we all offer the consumer the value of our experience from sheer numbers of transactions we work with. In comparison, years and years typically pass between transactions in which any individual consumer is involved. What is so easy for us Realtors to lose sight of, specifically because we do handle so many transactions, is the emotion involved in the process. Those of us who work with buyers get to see the elation of clients preparing for their new lives in their new homes. We’re there during the inspections, the walk-through, and we get to hand them their keys as they embrace this brand new promise. But how often are we there with our sellers, packing up, reminiscing?

I was reminiscing Thursday night as I pulled the bed linens off the inflatable bed, as I pulled the Hercules Hooks from the walls.

I thought about last summer, when we were making our plans to list this house. We had already seen the house and were just waiting for the tenants to move out on August 15. I knew it wanted a mid-century modern theme and had been watching craigslist for just the right accessories. I described my scavenger hunt to my father to pass the time while we waited in the ER the Thursday before the house was free to start our work. And the week we started preparing Oregon for market, the same week my dad slipped into an unconsciousness he’d never recover from, I’d spend the nights at the VA, describing my day’s work, convinced that my words would find their way into his memory and comfort him with the familiarity of their sound. Until I sat down to write this post I had forgotten that I hadn’t actually discussed the house with my father, that the “conversation” had been my voice alone.

It was raining — as it is today — the Saturday before our first open house on Oregon. My crew and I had been out in the neighborhood as the day dawned. I needed to finish distributing the invitations before my one o’clock meeting with the head of MICU. I sat there muddy from the morning’s work as the doctor told my family that Dad would never come home again, even if he miraculously lived. Summer ended the day my dad was buried. Five more open houses and the house was under contract. My memories of the last days of my father’s life will forever be tied up in my memories of that smart little house. I guess the melding of stories like the death of my dad and the sale of the house on Oregon is how family legends develop. The legends that families everywhere remember as they empty and ready their old homes for the new buyers to create memories of their own.

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