My dad is about to buy a one-story house located roughly half a mile from where my sister and her husband live. His current house, built by him and mom about thirty years ago, is two stories, and at his age, the stairs, well. His knees aren't as good as they used to be.

This house, the one he and mom built, holds a lot of memories. They finished it when I was a senior in high school, or possibly a freshman in college. Our collective memory has dimmed enough that none of us quite remembers which. This was not my childhood home; rather, it was the home we returned to, the home in which our children, Mom and Dad's grandkids, grew up and made their own memories.

It was the home my mother decorated herself, from the layout of the kitchen to the paint and wallpaper (which she applied herself) to the particular decor.

This was her home, and she was the glue that held it together.

When Mom passed away in October 2009, I took over a small portion of her duties, though I could never hope to fully fill her shoes. I was the one who sat down with Dad that Thanksgiving and planned and cooked the family meal. I was the one who quietly insisted on continuing the Christmas traditions she had established. I was the one who nagged Dad when the house wasn't quite as clean as I thought it should be, though my sister was the one who ponied up a housekeeper one year as his Christmas present.

We each have our roles to play, but we're all well aware that the role Mom played died with her. We can never replace her, only honor her memory by carrying on in the house she built with my father.

And now, he's relocating to a place she'll never be, a home he'll create in the golden years of his life where he'll be surrounded by family and friends and the relative safety of a one-level home lacking those precarious stairs.

When he discussed the move with us at our annual Christmas supper, each of us felt the shift between the memories made here with Mom and the adventure he will soon embark upon without her.

That house, his future home, needs a great deal of work. It's been sitting vacant for at least a decade and has accumulated mildew, mustiness, and a host of shed snake skins. The panelling needs to be replaced, and the carpets. The bathrooms and kitchen need remodeling. There's talk of tearing down a wall, of building out the basement (completely separate from and unnecessary to the living space on the main floor), of doing "something" with the two-car garage. He's not losing much space (maybe five hundred square feet), but he's gaining a place that will be more accessible to him in many, many ways.

Still.

The walls will not be painted or wallpapered by Mom. She will not choose the decor, a talent at which she excelled. She will not select the new layout of the kitchen, and her hands will not cook the meals around which we plan much of our family life.

She will not leave her mark on that place except through her absence.

And though some of her things will be carried from one home to the other, the memories will not. There they will remain, in the home she built with my father, to fade under the well-practiced hands of time's unceasing march.

She is no longer our anchor, our glue.

And still we miss her and carry her in our hearts, where memory is less fragile, even as we move on without her.