{"id":588,"date":"2014-01-15T20:24:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T02:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/forlorn\/?p=588"},"modified":"2014-09-04T11:57:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T16:57:40","slug":"wasting-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/forlorn\/?p=588","title":{"rendered":"Wasting Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Date of Visit: December 22, 2012<\/p>\n

Okay, I confess – I’m a hopeless sentimentalist. \u00a0After my parents died, I went through my childhood home and searched every nook and cranny, looking at old cancelled checks, receipts, insurance policies, manuals to long-lost television sets, blueprints for the house, etc. – gleaning every little tiny piece of knowledge about my past that I could gather. \u00a0I brought quite a few of those documents home with me to scan and enter into the family archives. \u00a0My brother still lives in the house, but I know that after he dies (assuming he goes before me), I’m going to have an absolutely terrible time going through the house and clearing it out because everything\u00a0<\/i>there has meaning to me. Throwing away anything that was picked out at the shop by my mother or was repaired by my father or that sat in the house where I was raised will be excruciating for me. \u00a0That’s just how I am.<\/p>\n

And that’s why I often find abandoned farmhouses so baffling. \u00a0So many times as I walk through them I see objects tossed aside that I know that\u00a0I\u00a0<\/em>would find impossibly sentimental and could never bear to see lying on the floor in the dust and mouse-droppings. \u00a0And I think, okay, obviously the last person who lived here must have been the last member of the family alive, and after he\/she died, there was simply no one left who cared.<\/p>\n

And being the nosy person I am, I go home and I research the people who lived in the house. \u00a0And so often I find that, no, actually, there’s plenty of family left alive, in the same area. \u00a0And then I really<\/em> wonder about these people.<\/p>\n

Take the stunningly gorgeous old farmhouse featured in this episode. \u00a0Just look at it. \u00a0Isn’t it amazing? \u00a0So beautiful! \u00a0 From the outside. \u00a0And then you walk inside and… \u00a0there’s no kitchen. \u00a0The kitchen floor has collapsed into the basement. \u00a0The house is in a terrible state of disrepair. \u00a0And upstairs there’s a box of vintage Xmas decorations and wrapping paper, just sitting there gathering dust. \u00a0And here and there are a few intact knick-knacks, and a few broken ones that could be glued back together again. \u00a0And I think, no one would let a house this beautiful rot. \u00a0There must be no one left.<\/p>\n

And then I take the names I gathered from the debris in the house and I search for information on the family. \u00a0I’m not sure when the house was built but in the early 20’s a World War I vet and his new wife moved into the house. \u00a0They raised three daughters and four sons here. \u00a0The man died in 1970. \u00a0His wife died in 1982. \u00a0The house has apparently been sitting vacant since that time. \u00a0Two of the children are deceased, the rest are still living in the area. \u00a0They have abundant children and grandchildren. \u00a0One son alone has 6 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n

And yet… they let this beautiful house waste away? \u00a0And they leave their grandmother’s Christmas decorations behind?<\/p>\n

I will never understand some people.<\/p>\n

And perhaps they will never understand me?<\/p>\n

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