Zillow's small (and weird) role in my life, after loss.

I have a confession to make.

In the middle of 2016, I started "following" my (then) house on Zillow, to track real estate trends as we planned to move. Our home sold quickly, we packed our things, and we moved away. Within weeks, life went haywire.

I never stopped following that home on Zillow; it was the last place I ever really "saw" my late, first husband, Kenny. I'm sure that sounds odd to folks who haven't experienced losing someone to a neuro degenerative disease (and people probably forget that most brain cancers are neuro degenerative); but essentially, I lost the person I married, the person I'd known like the back of my own hand, close to two years before his body followed. It seemed that he had slipped away somewhere between radiation treatments to his brain, and a tumor that wouldn't quit, in the early summer of 2015. I was too tired, overwhelmed, or just too damn busy trying desperately to save his life, that I didn't notice. People assume that when someone is sick for a long time, that at least you have closure, and had the opportunity to say goodbye. I can tell you, I didn't. I didn't get to say goodbye to the person who was "my" person, because I didn't know (until it was too late) that he was gone already. I will forever feel badly about this; and in the throes of early grief, there was an irrationally bereaved part of me who thought that if I could just get back into that house...maybe I'd catch a glimpse of him. I imagined it often... that he was still there, in some alternate universe, going about his life happily, and healthily.

When the trend reports still come in occasionally, I sometimes still open them, and I am embarrassed to admit that I will flip through the photos of the house as we had listed it...our big gray sofa in the living room, my (then) six year old daughter's pink and green owl bedding, and the fire pit out back Kenny built with his bare hands while he underwent clinical trials...it was probably the last thing he ever did as "my" person. It was like an occasional virtual time capsule, where I got to see it in real time, as I had lived in it, years ago.

Yesterday, my usual "report" came in...and I noticed the photo had changed, with a little tag that said "for sale." I hesitated at first. Did I really want to see it? Did I want to shatter my own imagination? Do I want to see what it looks like, now, knowing I might not find any version of the life I lived, there? There was a moment, or several, that I considered asking my realtor friend if she might make an appointment for me...maybe I can finally try to go catch that glimpse...maybe I can finally feel like I got to say goodbye.

But curiosity got the better of me, and I opted to open the listing. It didn't look entirely the same, and it didn't look entirely different. They'd changed from carpet to hardwood in the basement, they'd made the laundry room down there larger...but Kenny's beloved shuffleboard table still sits in the back left corner, as we left it (their request with their purchase). My kids' playset still sits in the yard, where they last climbed on it six years ago. The paver patio we designed is still in place, and the firepit Kenny built in the yard still stands; probably having warmed hundreds of smores, and shared lots of laughs with dozens of people since we left. It dawned on me, in this moment, that this family has lived in "my" house longer than I ever lived there. They have more memories. They made more changes. I've known (rationally speaking) all along that Kenny wasn't in there. That the outcome wouldn't have been different had we stayed, and that my goodbyes will never come. It was all just a thing in my head that I'd held onto, all this time. Some comforting thought. I realized just then...

It was never (just) the house that I missed, and it wasn't closure I was looking for. It wasn't Kenny, either.

It was me. I was looking for ME in those photos. A version of me that felt safe. Megan, who still got to live under the illusion that she controlled anything...life...cancer...death. A version of me that felt like if I did everything right, life would be just fine. Looking through those photos would remind me, if only for a moment, how it felt to not "know" the truth.

But I know, now, that I have no control, over any of it. I never did. That I will always live in fear, to some degree, for the rest of my life. I absolutely miss being the young woman who didn't know better. I miss being the woman who lived in that house.

I was, of course, always just fooling myself. It was how I survived back then. I may not have that luxury anymore, but I do have something else I can bank on: courage. It doesn't always look like it, and it doesn't always feel like it, but there's no other word I can think of to describe what it takes for me to move forward with the fear of knowing what could come. It took courage for me to fall in love with someone again, knowing how awful it would be lose him. To have another child, knowing I could someday end up raising her alone. For me to build a life, that's not entirely the same, but not entirely different; knowing that in a few years' time, I could be scrolling through Zillow photos, longing for today...to again be the woman who had the courage to live again, without the safety net of illusion.

Today felt like as good a day as any to close the chapter on my little excursions to 2016. I took one last peek at the space I used to call my own. They opened the kitchen walls. They redid my bathroom. They repainted the living room, and the exterior brick. It's really not my house anymore...on Zillow, or anywhere else.

Goodbye, old friend. I'll miss you.