I attended a family function yesterday and learned about the plans for our ancestral home. My cousin built a 4-storey commercial building near the municipal hall and his parents will live on the 3F after transfering from our ancestral home. He said the old house and lot, which they painstakingly renovated and expanded, is too noisy now as it is next to the highway. Well, he has a point; it’s not an ideal place for senior citizens to live in anymore.

The sad part is that they plan to demolish the house and all the structures around it (including my grandpa’s beloved kitchen) to make it into a commercial establishment.

My bestie cousin told me if we only (other cousins) had money, we could buy that family property instead of erasing all the footprints of our ancestors.

It’s nostalgia vs capitalism. Can we live with just nostalgia? I don’t know. My gut tells me we should at least try to buy it from my cousins.

However, we aren’t going to live in it so what’s the point?

Meanwhile, the home of my grandparents on my father’s side is still untouched. No one is living there and it stands there as a museum of sorts for that side of the family. My uncle who built it already retired and is living in a commercial establishment a kilometer or two from that house. He said he didn’t want to live there alone and do all the renovations because it was too bothersome.

I asked if I could at least scrounge through the old stuff I could preserve, like my dad’s old stuff.

However, I don’t have the time to do that. 😶

My father would have thrown a fit at the state of the house now. I mean it’s alright but you know that it’s like a haunted house, hosting the ghosts of the past while having no future.

Again, can we live with just the memories and remain in its stillness?