Out with the old …

There is nothing so constant as change. I know that. Still, some changes are more welcome than others. Some are easier to accept.

Yesterday, this house across the street from us was torn down.

Our neighbourhood is under lots of pressure from change. Maybe yours is too? I know it’s happening in communities all over the world, in cities all over the world.

These days many houses on streets like mine are bought and sold, not for the buildings, but for the lots. People are paying $600,000 and $700,000 (and more) to get a lot, tear down the house on it, and build what I guess must be their dream home.

The thing that gets to me is that one day these houses are homes – families live in them and are safe, warm, secure, and happy – and the next day these houses are tear-downs. Supposedly not worth keeping. More trouble than they’re worth to renovate.

When I spoke to the contractor working on this particular job he said, “Oh, well if you could see inside this house, you’d know it needed a lot of work.”

I cleared my throat and said, “Of course, I have been inside this house many times.” This was my neighbours’ home. Neighbours visit each other – or, on our street, many neighbours visit each other. Although, not so much the brand new ones who tore down the old houses.

When we moved into our house, back in 2000, this house belonged to one of the “founding families” of the street. He was the head of emergency medicine at the Civic Hospital – for many years in Ottawa holding a position like that was a big deal.

It was a big house for its time, with a huge yard by today’s standards. She was kept busy looking after it.

This house first became important to me when I was up every two hours, every single night with my first son. He slept little, ate often, and completely exhausted me.

Wandering around a dark house in the chill of the night holding a baby who won’t settle can make you feel like the only person in the world. You can begin to pity yourself because nobody else on earth is out of their warm bed … except you.

When I would feel that way, I would look out the window of our spare bedroom which faced this big red brick house and I would see lights on in their bedroom windows. I knew it was for a sad reason – I knew the wife was ill – but it provided me comfort and companionship. I wasn’t alone.

Eventually the wife died. I went to her funeral, took food to her widowed husband, and we became friends – I think it’s fair to call us friends.

Before he moved out of the big red brick house he called me over and invited me into the big, traditional dining room. There were items spread all over the table and he asked me to choose something I would like as he couldn’t take everything to his new apartment.

I’ll never forget that moment. I still have the beautiful woven tray, and silver platter I selected. He told me his wife had great taste and loved having beautiful things for the house and he wanted to make sure they went to good homes.

Later, after he moved out, a family moved in. They were diplomats from Germany and their kids were the same age as ours. The house wasn’t perfect, but it adapted well to housing an active family of four. The children on the street had always had free rein of the huge gardens around the big house, and that continued with the German family who moved in – with the addition of a trampoline – the first one on the block.

The wife of that family also had a flair for decorating, and she did wonders with the big rooms of the old house. We were invited over for drinks at Christmas and the old house looked worthy of entertaining foreign diplomats.

When that family moved out, the people on the street were scared. The house sat on a double lot, and it didn’t have a en-suite bathroom, or granite countertops – in other words, the land was amazing, and the building had issues.

We were afraid its teardown was inevitable.

We were right.

And, I know, things have to change. And I know people have a right to do what they want with their property. But the sad thing is there seems never to be an acknowledgement of what was good, and special, and lovely about the old houses.

It would have been nice to have had a second inviting of neighbours into that house. To say “you’ve all lived with this house on your street for a long time – is there something you would like to take from it?” or “Is there something you can tell me about it?”

Instead there was an excavator and in just a few hours, a pile of rubble.

Due to some neighbourly concern, and some intervention by our city councillor, these (the trees) are still there. We’re not sure for now long, though. We’re afraid it’s only a matter of time.

It’s amazing how trees can grow for a hundred years, and houses can be homes for a hundred years, and we can get rid of them in a few hours and soon there’s nobody left who remembers.

I guess, by writing this, I’m at least trying to do my part to remember.