Finding Easter's Promise in a House Reborn

After nearly three long years of work, the old farmhouse where I grew up has been renovated and is ready for a new family to move in.

My older brother, who now owns the homestead, has done a yeoman’s job managing the many contractors involved in the project, which has involved not only bringing the house up to modern-day standards, but also taking down overgrown trees and bushes in the yard.

At long last, it is done. A rental sign now stands out front. It is the strangest thing, and I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad about seeing that sign and thinking of strangers inhabiting the house that my family called home for more than five decades.

I guess I’m both happy and sad. I’m happy that the place has been reborn and is still in the family. I’m sad that my folks are not able to see the house they loved with its new look and many conveniences they could have only dreamed of.

It took many steps to get to this point. The first step, which took the better part of two years, involved clearing out the house and garage of 50-plus years of stuff. We began that process soon after Mom had a stroke in June 2022 and moved into a senior home.

The next phase involved upgrading the infrastructure of the place. The heating system was converted from oil to propane, and a new water heater was put in. The house also has air conditioning for the first time in its life via a state-of-the-art, multi-unit ductless system.  

Concurrent with the upgrading of the infrastructure, the inside of the house went through a makeover. New sheetrock walls. New flooring. New windows in many of the rooms. New kitchen cabinets and appliances.

Yesterday, I took a walkthrough of the house and found it transformed to the point of being almost unrecognizable. The kitchen is like something out of a showroom. The floors gleam. The bathrooms—three of them in a house that only had a single one when I was growing up—are gorgeous.

My old room that I shared with my brothers

My old bedroom that I shared with my three brothers is now much bigger, owing to the fact that a separation wall has been removed. Is this the same closet-sized room where I spent so many years of my life filling notebook after notebook with poems and stories that I kept under my mattress?

The house now has a new master bedroom in the space above the family room. That space had been unfinished for nearly forty years since we built the addition between the house and the garage in 1987. My father always planned to finish the room but never had the money or the energy to do it.

Now it’s done, and only his ghost is here to enjoy it. I could feel my father’s presence as I walked through the place. My mother’s too. How she would have loved that kitchen with its granite countertops and brand-new GE stove and refrigerator.

Alas, if only human beings, like houses, could go through a makeover and be reborn. But that is the promise of Easter, isn’t it? That one day, if only we keep the faith and not despair, we will be made new.

I mulled on this as I went outside to look at the landscaping around the farmhouse. Amongst the new bushes along the front and sides of the house, I saw clusters of yellow daffodils and pink hyacinths blooming in the same spots where they have been popping up every spring for the past forty years. I saw some tulips coming up too.

It struck me that these perennials were from the Easter flowers we gave to our mother over the years. After the blooms dried up, she would pop the bulbs into the ground around the house. Here we are, all these years later, and they are still blooming. They are the gift that keeps on giving.

I snipped a handful of daffodils and tulips to bring to Mom at the assisted living community. She will like them, especially when I tell her they’re from the old house.

One day, perhaps soon, her old, tired, failing body will be made new again too. It will be hard—we must die to ourselves to be born again, the Bible says—but on the other side lies something even more profound and beautiful.

That’s the promise of the resurrection. I believe it.

Happy Easter, and happy Passover to my Jewish friends. I hope your holiday is filled with blessings … and hopefully some flowers too.