21. Foreclosure: Write a poem or short story about someone who has lost or is about to lose their home.
Foreclosure is sad for me. The circumstances that have to occur to get to the point of foreclosure seem complicated and sticky.
When our mother died, we all got a little money from inheritance so my brother (8 years my senior) used his to put a down payment on a house. Recently divorced, this looked like a good path forward for him: new city, new home, new life. He didn’t like his job, lost his job, and then didn’t seem to do much after that. He made choices that I would not have made. After cutting expenses, slowly he had no money for the mortgage and decided to wait for the foreclosure notice before he left. I don’t know what efforts he took to keep the house but seemed more resigned that he would lose it.
He put his belongings in storage and lived on and off with my sister or me for a few years. When he didn’t pay his storage bills, he also lost his belongings. When he didn’t want to live by house rules any more, he moved to another state where our dad lives.
Maybe it’s good to not have things. No attachment is a goal of Buddhism. Foreclosure was the path of no attachment for my brother.
