Fifty years to the day.

Mom sold the house 50 years to the day we moved into it.

We moved into the house Oct. 1, 1971. My sister and I were little kids. Mom and Dad were barely in their 30s. 

Mom sold the house last week, Oct. 1, 2021. Mom, my sister and I are older. Dad is gone.

Selling the house on the actual 50th anniversary wasn’t planned. 

The signing had been scheduled weeks earlier but, like so many things the past year and a half, COVID changed those plans. The closing attorney was sick, then better, then sick again.

So, Oct. 1, an unexpected call from the Realtor, an impromptu time set, a notary obtained, the signing took place … on the exact date we moved into the house 50 years ago.

Mom, my sister and I couldn’t help but comment on it. I talked about it with my wife. I texted my sons about it, commenting not just on the date, but that their Mema had sold the house they visited so many times as children.

Still, I keep coming back to that date. Fifty years to the day. Oct. 1, 1971-Oct. 1, 2021.

Is it coincidence? Is it irony? Is it fate?

If it’s coincidence, then it’s just a random occurrence. Something that just happened, despite the long odds against it occurring. 

There’s a certain irony. Oct. 1 had always marked the date we moved into what would become the family home. The place where we made a universe of family memories. Now, Oct. 1 marks the date when that house is no longer part of the family.

And if it’s fate, in that it was meant to happen, then what does that mean?

What does selling the house on the same calendar date 50 years later signify?

I’ve often wondered about these cross-sections of dates. Either they happen often in my family, or my family just pays more attention to them than most, but we’ve had our share. 

My maternal grandfather died on my paternal grandmother’s birthday. My father died on my father-in-law’s birthday. Coincidence? Fate? Ha, when my sons marry, should I pay especially close attention to the birthdays of their fathers-in-law? Should they take note of my birthday?

Such dates are littered throughout history. For example, Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day. And that date was July 4, 1826 – the 50th anniversary of American independence.

Still, these observations likely have more to do with how we perceive them than what cosmic message they may or may not convey.

I remember interviewing an older couple back in 2002. The story was to mark the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks but the story was about the couple celebrating their wedding anniversary as they had for more than 50 years. Their wedding anniversary fell on Sept. 11. The date was a national tragedy but for them it was still a day for personal celebration as it had been for the five decades plus prior to 2001.

And maybe that’s the whole point of taking note of such events. Maybe they are to remind us that good and bad, the miraculous and the tragic, the blessed and the cursed, can happen any day, or even on the same calendar date. That each day is both happy and sad.

Maybe focusing on the house anniversary made it easier to accept that a big chapter in our lives has passed. That people who lived there and visited that house in 1971 are gone and have been gone. And the house represented holding onto some part of them.

We would have been sharing memories of living in the house no matter the date of the signing. But now whenever we talk about the house, we will likely always add as almost a family mantra, you know, it sold 50 years to the date we moved into it. And possibly, that part of the story will carry our memories of the house into generations to come.

And if it signifies anything, maybe Oct. 1, 1971-Oct. 1, 2021 just means another assurance that all of the happy and sad experienced in our home will keep living within the houses of our memories.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.