A Bitter Sweet Moment

This was the house my father bought in 1959, two years after we immigrated to Canada. His dream of owning a home had come true. He was so proud of the house that would provide comfort and shelter for his family. It was to become our family residence. See that little window to the left of the front door? That was my room.

The house sat on the corner of a quiet street. Very few of the other homes in the area had been completed. The side street was a little dirt path. But over time the city of Toronto grew up around it. The house now sits on the corner of a busy intersection. Huge trees line the street.

If walls could talk. This house saw a lot in the last 50 years. There were first days at school and graduations. Birthday parties and Christmases. There were weddings and wedding receptions. There were births of children and grandchildren. It saw separations and divorce. It saw illness and death. It saw good times and bad times. We laughed. We cried. We played. We dreamed. We left the little house to make our own futures. So many memories.

My father passed away 14 years ago. His widow lived in the house until she died last summer. Then we put the house up for sale. We removed pictures from the walls. We painted. We cleaned. We emptied it of its contents until it was just a shell. And today the final papers were signed. The house belongs to someone else now. It's a bitter sweet moment.