It was so dark in the stairway, that I again had to use my headlamp. There, on the floor, was a receipt from a toy store. I couldn’t figure out what had been bought.
The first thing upstairs was a small storage space. And by the looks of that wall, collapse has started.
Moving from the stairway to the floor.
The first thing found there: a small toilet.
The first room. Notice how close to other buildings the house was.
An old stove. It is starting to look like even this house had contained several apartments earlier. Nothing else explains a stove upstairs.
A hockey themed game named after a hockey themed TV-show. Clever.
Moving on to the other room.
The three small windows on both ends were the only windows upstairs.
The essay notebook of the child living in the house. I took the opportunity and read it. There were both fairy tales as well as the mandatory stories about how the family had spent their Christmas.
The amount of beds suggests that there had been more than one child. I found no evidence to support this.
Poor thing.
One of these home made CD:s even I had. Let’s have a closer look.
Rather heavy music. But. Tea’s Tytöt Tykkää was an awful one summer hit in 2007, which was also the year Within Temptation’s ‘What Have You Done’ was released. I suspect that the place was abandoned around back then. That was the summer when I was in my home town’s biggest festival singing the same Within Temptation song in the front row. We did have something in common with the kid living here.
I’ve since exited. And took one more shot of the old Mercedes camper standing on the yard.
I left for new adventures, but couldn’t get the kid out of my mind. Their first name wasn’t the most common of names, but the surname was extremely rare with less than 100 living people with the name still in use.
I did a Facebook search, I found the person. They were now 20+ years old and lived in one of my former home towns. We even had a mutual friend.
After a few weeks of consideration I contacted this friend. I asked her if she could forward a message to the person and tell them that their identification documents lie around in an abandoned building, where youngsters spend time drinking, and that there is a risk of identity theft existing.
They didn’t know and thanked. They were about to travel to the house to get some of the most important things away. They didn’t ask who I was, nor did they say anything about me being in the house without their permission.
The good deed of the summer was done.
I’m currently in the process of selling my childhood home in New York City, and the experience is profoundly bittersweet. Letting go of this cherished place feels like a significant loss, knowing that once it’s sold, I won’t have the opportunity to visit again. The memories of my youth, which are still tied to this physical space, will no longer have their anchor. I often wonder if, in the years to come, someone might stumble upon my name, which I’ve written on all the walls, and feel a desire to find out what happened to the little girl who lived there, grew up, and moved away.
I know the feeling. I have no less than eleven childhood homes, none of which belong to the family any more. Also my grandparents’ place, which was the only place that stayed with me during all of my childhood, has been sold.
But trust me, the worst part is letting go. Once the property is sold and some time passes, you can cherish the memories without missing the place. I hope!