what we take and what we leave

Lisa Rapoport

Over the last six months, both of my parents have died. I am at an age where most of my friends are experiencing the same, with anxiety about how to move a parent from their home to assisted living, or worrying about what am I going to do with all of their stuff? What did they think is home? Will my siblings want the same things? What are the things that matter? What sums up your parents in their things rather than in your memory? How do you think about their home as your home?

My parents had chosen to stay in the family home – my dad was still full of energy and strength in his 90s and my mother infirm. Because of my mother’s lack of mobility, we had a hospital bed for her in the open plan living/dining room and she had enough mobility just to get to the kitchen, living room, and front porch until even the one step down with someone holding her was too much. Her world was quickly reduced to the ground floor of the house that we had lived in since 1962. My mother was a photographer, and suddenly the only thing she could explore was what she could see from her bed. Her artwork had a strong sense of collage and surprise and so her vivid imagination could see ‘great pictures’ in the way that one part of kitchen cabinets kind of looked like a kimono from the right angle. In her minds’ eye she was shooting it.

Although my parents who both had art practices and many, many interesting things in the house including a significant art collection, neither were nostalgic. They liked telling stories about things they had as a kind of prompt (when it was interesting), but did not express deep attachment to the things themselves.

the painting

After my dad died (though the much healthier one, he suddenly died first) my mom was left with caregivers, and my sister embarked on the project of moving her from Montreal to Toronto to assisted living. My mother had always said she wanted to stay home until the end – that way she would not have to ever sort through her ‘stuff’ (thanks ma!). But, with my sister and I both in Toronto, it was very difficult for us to provide any consistent support. The search for a place for her brought up many questions about what home is. Nurses told us that if you move the elderly, it is best to bring as many things as possible that make it as much the same as where they came from – the position of the bed, the carpet, the curtains, the orientation. The familiar combats anxiety. The new apartment needed to be small enough that it would not frustrate her lack of mobility, but also had to have a seriously large wall directly facing the bed. She did not care very much about looking at the pictures of the future apartment, or the 3D fly through, she just said – as long as I can wake up every morning and look at ‘that’ picture, all will be good.

That picture is a large abstract painting by the Quebec artist Guy Montpetit (from the Sex Machine /OU Êtes vous donc Series C No 3 1969/1970). It faced her when she was lying in bed (which was a lot of the time) and as she could not move her head to the side very well, this was the straight on view at the foot of the bed.

She said she saw in it two people about to hug (separately my father said the same thing, though not sure they ever talked about it). I think that she also saw it as something that was endlessly fascinating – it captured her imagination. It was not the thingness of it, or the ownership, or the story of how it was bought; it was not about memory, instead, it was about its capacity to be changeable, curious, compelling. About other things in the room – she was detached. They were things, but they were not what defined her home.

the plants

Along the front window sill was a collection of succulent plants. My mother could not keep a plant alive if her life depended on it, but loved succulents. She read all about them, but my green thumb dad was commandeered to satisfy this need. The line up at the cash of their favourite Chinese restaurant was lined with rubber plants – she would elbow my dad into breaking off a leaf as she was the shy one in the couple, and they started a short career in leaf nipping (succulents root from any leaf), my mother commanding, my dad complying.

Building on successful looting, their succulent garden grew mostly from scratch all along the sill – and was their shared indoor garden. Soon people would trade cuttings and the garden got variety. My mother loved the strong profiles, the way the light came through — and I am sure, she saw pictures in these too — as another part of her photo oeuvre was a series of abstract views of plants at the Montreal Botanical Gardens. After my dad died, the caregivers were given the task of ensuring these stay alive – it was as though they both lived in that set of plants. As we were planning the move, the size of the windowsill and orientation of every apartment we looked at were critical.

My mother died before making it to the new apartment in Toronto. I have yet to go through the stuff in the house. There are things of ‘value’, there is an interesting art collection and the extensive archives of their own artworks. All of this we will go through in due time. But in the meantime I brought the plants to my studio in Toronto — and in nurturing them there I am surprised to discover how much it feels like my parents are with me. Like I brought them home with me. To my home.

coda

Over the last few decades, real estate speak has replaced the word house with home. I don’t think you can sell homes. Homes are what you make — whether that is your room in a rooming house, or the grand pile — it is something you make.

As a design practice, we most often work with clients who have character, they collect things or make things (which could be as simple as being GREAT cooks) –they need a house that will accommodate exactly who they are. Our most wince-inducing question from a client is — would that idea be good for resale? One of the first questions we ask people – is this your terminal house? What we mean by that is — are you doing this for you? or to satisfy some future buyer? The projects we do are for people who want things not because they have seen them before, but because they need their actual life to be supported and celebrated – to make it their home.

Sometimes that means their too-much stuff, or that ugly clock they got from their grandma, but it is what it makes it feel like home to them.

You buy a house, you make a home.

LISA RAPOPORT is a founding member of PLANT, an architecture and landscape architecture studio in Toronto, working across Canada and internationally. https://branchplant.co