Channeling Grief

My Kitchen Renovation and the Bittersweet Weight of Family Memories

Empty space after demolition during home kitchen renovation

Imagine walking into your kitchen one morning and seeing this image: a shell of a room with no clear purpose.

As excited as I was to finally be renovating my kitchen, I was still shocked by the sight of the demolished space last Monday. It took less than eight hours for a home demolition crew to remove everything: appliances, cabinets, and plumbing.

After the workers left, I stepped inside. The air no longer smelled of simple dinners: roast cauliflower, turkey burgers, or pasta with briny olives. Instead, I smelled only drywall and damp. I dragged my feet over the dusty paper and sneezed, the sound echoing. How could this be my kitchen?

My breath caught when I realized that this hollowed out space resembled grief.

Grief and healing with what remains

Did I miss my old kitchen? Absolutely not. After 16 years, the appliances had mostly stopped functioning. I had a freezer that refused to chill, burners that needed a match, and a dishwasher that leaked.

But as I considered the walls where the cabinets used to hang, I felt a pang of that same disorientation that comes with sudden loss, when life becomes unrecognizable and everything you expect to see is gone.

I also longed for those schoolday mornings when I served my sons breakfast, bagel brunches with friends, and evenings when the hum of the dishwasher lulled me into a false certainty that my family would never change.

Constructing a new normal and bringing forward family memories

Finally, I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose.

Keeping my decrepit kitchen intact isn’t going to bring back Henry, my oldest son. And despite the bittersweet waves of nostalgia, I am ready to construct something new in this bare room.

I’m excited about clean countertops, an icemaker, and the “pizza mode” on my new electric oven.

I’m also hoping to create a space where I can build new, happy memories.