My grandmother's house sold last week.
She and my grandfather bought that house about 20 years ago to the day, just before Halloween, 1986.
My mom and I had just moved to the west coast. I was 5. My parents were newly separated. My dad's side of the family had been in Canada for 7 years. The house had a brand new thick green carpet, old school mirrors, and a white kitchen; it was a nice place, at the time.
My mom has moved more times than I can remember. I've never had a bedroom for more than 2 years. No residence has been consistent in my life, except my grandmother's house.
I watched Johnny Carson's last show with my dad in the upstairs bedroom. I put on a (bad) puppet show in the basement. My grandfather got mad at me (the only time ever) for banging on my aunt's bedroom door, wanting her to play with me. My cousin hid my speak 'n spell upstairs in the closet. My dad kicked my ass at Monopoly in the dining room. My other aunt taught me my multiplication tables on the front deck. My dad got mad at me for something small in the upstairs bedroom and made me cry. I read articles on Manic Depression in the living room, after my dad was gone. My second cousin stood standing on the porch, smoking a cigarette, waiting to go inside for my father's wake.
That house holds so many of my memories of my life with my dad's side of the family. My grandmother, who was rich in Iran, is now having anxiety attacks as she packs up her house, throws away old documents, and sells her only asset.
My grandfather was a doctor in Iran, my grandma a vice principal at a school. They had pensions, factories, houses, nannies, a cabin on the Caspian Sea... and now, there's only the money she got for the house. They owned a lot of land in Iran, and now, with her family settled all over the world, her son dead, her husband gone... my grandmother finally threw out the deeds to their property in Iran. "By now, the land has been taken over. And even if someone decided to go retrieve it, how could they prove it belonged to us? Nobody has been back to Iran since 1979" she told my aunt.
Life is so weird. It's a small moment for her to sell that house. In the big scheme, it was only 20 years that she lived there. But i'm only 25. She's lived there my whole life. And the land they owned in Iran, they owned for a long time. But then they had to give it up... and never got it back. And life is just like that in every way. So fleeting, completely transient, and nothing ever really belongs to any of us, except our own memories.
That's all I've got for this entry.
