It felt wrong moving something from where it belonged. The medicine cabinet was a charming element of our tiny beach cottage in Blue Point, Long Island, the first home my husband and I ever owned. Handcrafted from oak, backed in red calico fabric, fronted with a small oval mirror that, here and there, had lost some of its silver shine. It seemed to be part of the original late nineteenth-century décor of our master bath, with the clawfoot bathtub and two-faucet sink. But our family had grown, we needed to remodel, and the cabinet was just too small. We put it out for our yard sale.
An elderly man seized it almost immediately. “I remember this cabinet!’ he exclaimed. He told us he had lived in our cottage as a child. “The woman who lived here fostered many children,” he told us, “and I was one of them.” I happily sold him the cabinet, glad that it could bring joy into his home while clearing space in ours.
Within a few years, however, we were moving on, to New Hampshire. I held fond memories of our first home, but fell in love with all the space in the New Hampshire countryside, and the beautiful lakes, mountains and rivers that surrounded us. I thought we’d stay there forever. Until one of our sons was diagnosed with learning disabilities. There weren’t any resources nearby to help him. And my husband grew weary of the frequent trips to New York City necessary for his job. After four years, we decided to return to Blue Point.
It felt wrong moving something from where it belonged. This time, our family. We’d bought our New Hampshire house at the height of the market, and sold it for below value. All we could afford now was an old, much smaller fixer-upper that required extensive remodeling. It felt like we were going backwards in life.
I set to work cleaning up the place and almost cried. The upstairs bathroom was covered in dust and cobwebs. Home is where the heart is, I reminded myself. But Blue Point no longer felt like home. This house certainly didn’t. What if we’d made a bad decision? I couldn’t take moving again.
I started to dust off the medicine cabinet. Underneath the grime, it actually wasn’t in bad shape. Well made from strong oak, its oval mirror a bit dingy but usable. Then I opened it…and saw the red calico fabric I knew so well.
This time when we remodeled, we kept our little medicine cabinet. It was where it belonged. And so were we.
