]In mid-August last year, two men came by and took our kitchen apart. “Taking it down to the studs,” they called it. “Demo day! Demo day!” our children sang. After 13 years in this house, it was finally time to renovate: I got the kitchen I had always dreamed of.
I’ve seen enough HGTV to know what demolition would look like — I even pictured myself in a hard hat, sledgehammer in hand, smashing through one of our worn-out cabinets, and ripping out the barely functioning second-hand dishwasher. Be away! The mid-century kitchen had served our family well for four generations now: it was tired, it was time.
However, I forgot to tell that to my heart. As workers tore at the walls, ceiling, and layers of linoleum, I hid in the bedroom, stunned by the tears wetting my face and the sobs wracking my body. This was a happy day, a dream come true! What the hell was wrong with me?
Home is where the heart is, they say. I forgot that the heart is too in the house.
More from Beth Brown Ables: Dog people
These weren’t just walls that the workers had removed; they were steeped in years of conversations, prayers and memories. When he was little, my husband would visit his grandparents here after school, sitting at the table to finish his homework. It is the same room where our own children ate their first bites. It’s the place where we hosted community groups, Thanksgivings, birthday parties, sad dinners with leftovers, potlucks with dozens of friends, breakfasts of cold cereal and berries past their prime. The daily grind, the beautiful boredom that is part of a life.
I cried when they tore out our kitchen because something was torn out was: the under-cabinet lights that took my dad all day and several trips to Home Depot to install them, the garbage disposal he added (which was way too powerful and shot dirty water into the faces of unsuspecting dishwashers), the light switch that was covered with tape where he took out a ceiling light and never got around to replacing it. Dad was everywhere in the room, and now it was gone, like he was gone. Two years now. The demo day was intense: a tear, a mourning. Sadness touches on sadness and taps into that greater source of pain.
Home feels different for all of us these days. Hurricane Helene tore through the ribcage of the South, destroying ancient oak trees, flooding valley towns, clogging rivers and lakes with splintered wood, worn insulation and shattered windows: houses.
The name Helene means ‘shining light’, a terrible irony, when so many are powerless without it, literally and figuratively. Our street alone lost 23 trees, sturdy giants: the air here smelled of fresh wood and looked like a war zone. We had no power for nine days, and when there was a sliver of cell signal, my phone filled with images of flooding, muddy lives, the devastation of Western North Carolina. Instead of watching the news, we watch were the news. One story followed a Swannanoa woman re-entering her flood-damaged home: “I feel like this is a movie,” her voice trailed off, “it’s surreal to see all your stuff, covered in mud and useless.” ‘
TALKING home: Beth and Matt Ables’ Stone Lake home full of heart
When our kitchen was torn apart, an echo of what it was, my father-in-law came by to see the progress. “I remember this floor,” he said, stroking the dark linoleum that had been hidden for decades. He smiled at the memories. When so much is torn away, raw and exposed, the light comes in and the truth is revealed. The news shows flooding, but perhaps the shining light is in the stories of communities feeding each other, the donations, the outpouring, the neighborhood text messages checking on each other.
It took two days to demolish our kitchen and dining room, but a good part of a year to rebuild. Creating something stronger and better takes time, patience and steely determination.
Home is where the heart is, they say. Our hearts are in our homes, in our communities, in our favorite places. Think about this vulnerable time, before we retreat back to the familiar comfort of electricity and internet, of insulated walls and intact roofs. Remember when we were so briefly torn to the studs and sinews, where we shared what we had, where we stood in the middle of our devastated streets and held each other tight. Also remember this: there are people around who will need us for years to come.
More last train out: From Ana Parra… Rethinking pink
Home is where our heart is. In the walls heavy with prayer, in the rooms we find safety within. At home, the photos show the junk drawers, dirty towels, crumbs on the counter. It’s in the wood-smelling air, the outstretched hand, the decision that we’re not going anywhere. A long way forward, together.
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Last Train Out with Beth Brown Ables: Down to the Studs
