That Home - Grieving the Family Home

That Home - My childhood home probably in the early 60s. I'm not sure who took this picture or where my father or two older sisters were. My brother is leaning against the downstairs window, my mother appears to be opening up the garage door, and I'm in the pink dress in the driveway.

I was recently reminded of the memories attached to my childhood home when I connected with a high school friend on Facebook.  We hadn’t seen each other in almost 40 years, but she said she thought of me recently when she drove past our home. It wasn’t until after the sale of that home that I realized the grief was associated with the end of that chapter.

The Largest City in NJ that No One Has Ever Heard of

Growing up, whenever someone asked where I lived, I would say the big yellow house at the corner of Oak & Main.  Everyone knew that home in my home town of Vineland, NJ. Vineland is the largest city in New Jersey per square mile. There is a lot of land in S Jersey as it’s the agricultural part of the state,  but it’s not densely populated like cities in N Jersey. My father built that home during his off hours with the help of one carpenter whose name was Friday. I recall my mother would bring him coffee in a thermos and lunch. At such a young age, I didn’t realize how hard that must have been for my father to commute four hours round trip a day to Trenton, NJ, where he was in an executive position in state government. He worked on that home during his weekends off.

My school, Oak and Main Elementary School, was directly across the street. During recess, my classmates and I would run to the fence and wave hi to my mother, who was perpetually weeding in the front yard. I remember my classmates asking if we were rich. I thought it was such an odd question. My parents were children of the depression, so that mentality was what we were accustomed to. We did have a larger home than most. I had my own bedroom, which wasn't that common in a family of six, or at least where I grew up. I had many friends who lived in three-bedroom, one-bath ranch homes, and I remember wondering why they chose to live in such small houses.

That Home - The Early Days

We moved into that home in 1962 when I was four years old, and I lived there until 1980, when I was twenty-one and moved to Dallas. We sold that home in 2016 after the passing of my mother. My mother suffered from hoarding disorder, and no, she wasn't always like that, and no, I didn't become a professional organizer as a result either. The latter is a story for another time. Now, in my business as a professional organizer, I know to refer to hoarding as a mental health disorder. My memories of moving into that nearly empty home were a stark contrast to the fate it held over half a century later. Now, walking down the hallway to my childhood bedroom was done by sliding my body sideways against the wall because of the stacked boxes and piles consisting of who knows what. 

This was my mother's stroller when she was a baby in 1925. I remember playing with it at my grandparents' house. It was in the estate sale in 2016.

It was that home where I watched the evening news scroll the deceased service members' names in the Vietnam War, and it was that home where I saw the troops returning from Vietnam. It was that home where I saw Richard Nixon resign in disgrace as president, when I saw students shot at Kent State, and when I saw school riots erupt during integration. It was that home when I saw color TV for the first time, when I saw the Beatles' debut on Ed Sullivan, and when I learned to dance by watching Soul Train. It was that home where I watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon, when I watched Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV, and it was that home when 6-year-old me watched John-John Kennedy salute his father’s coffin.  It was that home when we celebrated the births of my nieces and nephews and grieved the deaths of my father and grandparents. 

This was once called the recreation room. It had the largest TV and was where I remember seeing the NBC Peacock in color for the first time. This is the cleared-out version from the estate sale.

Don't Sell Anything Too Cheap!

Yep, that was my mother's biggest concern - we'd sell her stuff too cheap. The last time I saw my mother was Mother’s Day 2016.  I wanted to feel what you're supposed to feel walking back into your childhood home. The warmth of it, the smell of Italian cooking, the memory in the walls, but all I felt was repulsion. And it was that home where I screamed at my mother three weeks before she died for letting it deteriorate as it fell victim to her hoarding disorder.  She told me that day she wanted to die there, and it was that home when her caregiver found her dead the Tuesday morning following Memorial Day. No one had spoken to her all weekend. My siblings told me they could smell her corpse from outside that home while they waited for the coroner to arrive.

My Mother & I at The Mansion on Turtle Creek

An investor bought that home, renovated it, and painted it grey so it’s no longer the big yellow house on the corner of Oak & Main.  A new family lives there now, making their memories and one day remembering when…

Footnote - Pictures don't adequately reveal the extent of disorder and decline in our family home. If you would like to see the items from the estate sale (and there's a ton), here is the link. If you or someone you know is suffering from this disorder, please look for assistance at The Institute for Challenging Disorganization. If you don't want this to become your future, please contact me for help.

Jolene Monaco spent 28 years negotiating aerospace deals across the globe before deciding that helping people organize their homes was somehow less chaotic. She's a Certified Professional Organizer® based in Dallas, TX, and will freely admit that rescue animals remain her favorite clients.