The Realtor’s Office

My sister and I are at the realtor’s office today, signing the papers to sell our South Dakota family home of sixty years. We procrastinated until twenty minutes before closing time, ostensibly obsessing over the final asking price; but really we were paralyzed by the enormity of what we are about to do.

My German paternal grandfather came to the Dakota Territory as a nineteen-year-old boy in 1877. My paternal grandmother’s parents immigrated here in 1873, setting up the first mercantile store in the Dakota Territory in the town of Yankton. My maternal great, great grandmother came to Dakota Territory in 1892.

Our family has one hundred and thirty seven years of continuous history in this town. My mother and father met at Yankton College, one of those fine old liberal arts colleges for which the Midwest is famous, and after World War II they decided to return, wanting, in my father’s words, “To give back all that was given to me.” They also felt it would be a wonderful place to raise a family, and it was.

With the sale of our family home, my sister and I officially break the chain. We make it real that neither we, nor any of our children, will be returning to take over the old homestead. We commit to lives in California and Massachusetts.

We are in a dissociated state as we sign page after page of legal documents. I periodically gaze at the signed photograph of George and Laura Bush hanging on the agent’s wall (Democrats are somewhat few and far between here), and find myself irrationally disliking all three for taking my childhood home away from me.

My hand has mechanically been filling in blanks designed to prevent future litigation, while I struggle to keep my balance on ground that is shifting under my feet.

So here I am in South Dakota, trying out Grandma’s recipe for tasty impermanence, using three simple roots: expect it, accept it and greet it with an attitude of “That’s good!” My first attempt seems like an abysmal failure.  After the signing, my sister and I go to swim laps to burn off some emotional energy. I am sobbing as I swim, gulping water and causing the young, thin blonde lifeguard to actually stand by the side of the pool and start taking off her sweatpants, readying herself to save me.

I’m thinking of my father who loved being a doctor and worked until he was seventy-eight, walking out of his retirement dinner saying, “Well, it’s done.” I wanted to wrap my arms around him and save him too.

But that’s the point: there is no saving any of us from impermanence. It is the natural order of things and we are presented with that lesson over and over as we live our lives. The literal saving grace is found in grandma’s recipe. “Greet it with an attitude of ‘That’s good.’”

I couldn’t really feel that in the core of me as I left the real estate office. I had to do the letting-go, sobbing swim first. My western trained, psychotherapist self would say that is a necessary step, not to be skipped: the feeling of the emotions. Slowly though, I’m beginning to fantasize about a new owner of our house planting roses, daisies, tomatoes and onions, and maybe even greeting children on horses who ride up hoping for cookies. And best of all I even find myself thinking, “It’s done. That’s good. Gary and I are free to dance off to Belize or Oregon or maybe even Tibet.” Now that could be a good soup.

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