Fourth Form of Madness

What makes a home?  I have been contemplating this over the last few weeks as my mother prepares to sell our family home and move somewhere smaller and more secure.  Is it the structure, the bricks or mortar? The furnishings, the personalised decor, the knick knacks that collect on a corner table next to family portraits?  Is it the memories or the hopes for future plans?  These are the questions I ask myself as I walk around my mother’s home.  I have agreed to walk through the house with “fresh eyes” so to speak to see if I can detect any possible reasons why it has spent weeks on the market and despite a collection of uber positive comments, has remained unsold.  What was preventing the deal from being closed?

As I enter the house I am really conscious of a instant homely feel.  This house oozes comfort and promise that a nurturing, enjoyable life is close at hand.  I would even go as far to say that there is a feeling of a celebration of life with beautiful wedding photos and flowers displayed on various surfaces and a fire place that whispers of cosy times spent listening to the crack and pop of cinders whilst watching the hypnotic dance of the flames.  I too am beginning to wonder why this place hasn’t worked it’s magic on a new family as yet.  It is priced reasonably and is situated in a particularly peaceful and beautiful part of the south west. And then I see it.

As I am gazing through the study, seeing not just looking, my eye catch “with sympathy” cards that are on the window sill and desk.  I glance to the book cupboard and I see a prominent funeral home brochure leaping out at me from the other numerous novels.  I move into the main lounge and suddenly feel that I have been transported to the funeral parlour so often seen on Six Feet Under.  There are flower arrangements on wood craved stands and lace doilies.  I get it. This house is selling life on the surface, perhaps on a conscious level, but then underselling it with reminders of death.  There is one thing you don’t want to do when selling a home, when selling someone there new dream, and that is to remind them, no matter how subtly, of death.  This is a certain deal breaker.

After a little chat, Mum decided to pack up her doilies and clear all mentions of death from visual display before the next home open.  We both wait now, eager to see if we have changed the conversation that her home is having with people on the conscious and unconscious level.  Fingers crossed……