Beloved White Elephant

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Legend has it that kings in ancient Thailand would deviously bestow the “gift” of a rare and sacred albino elephant on certain unfavored people. Because the white elephant was so costly to maintain and not permitted to work (being sacred and all), the sorry recipient would eventually end up in financial ruin.

Our family’s summer home on the coast of Maine was often referred to as a white elephant by my grandfather. As a child I didn’t understand the expression, but the house was big and white, so the imagery made sense to me.

Now that I am a grandma myself, I have a greater appreciation for what it took to keep the house in the family all these years. In fact, with the death of our mother, who owned it the last three decades of her 94 years, my two siblings and I are truly finding out what Granddad meant. I’m sure neither our grandparents nor our mother regarded us as unfavored people, but as we face the enormous expenses and physical challenges of maintaining this house of memories, it is becoming clear to the three of us that we have indeed inherited a white elephant.

My grandparents are long gone now, as are most of the relatives who lived or visited there from 1946 on. However, like the white elephant, their spirits and the house are sacred to us and to our children. It is a large 250-year-old place, packed with the accumulation of several generations, where for the past 65 years we have gathered for summer vacations. There are enough bedrooms for all of us and enough space to be together without being underfoot. It is a place that connects us to our deceased relatives and childhood memories.

Traditions here run deep. Old family portraits adorn the walls, trinkets clutter every surface; furniture, china, and kitchen equipment belonging to my great grandparents is still used, and a myriad of dust-gathering notes and postcards have been hanging on doors or walls for decades. Some of the mattresses are at least 70 years old. It’s a house filled with ghosts, all nice ones of course, but nevertheless, ghosts.