It’s rare to wake up in my parents’ house and feel warm. Because the house is old and has no insulation, it’s constantly at least 10 degrees below what we consider “room temperature,” if even that. My parents have gotten so used to it that when a room actually is 68 degrees, they think it’s hot. But what has changed over the last year is that my mom has actually felt more and more cold, so they’ve finally been taking advantage of the central heat they installed years ago. I’ve been waking up the last two days feeling warm and cozy, even after I remove my bed covers and expose my arms to the world outside my bed. This felt very unusual and not “normal” for this house.

This momentarily made me angry this morning, though, as I remember Ed used to complain constantly about how cold the house was. Ed’s needs were never taken seriously, so our dad would reject it when Ed would say he wanted to turn the heat on. “Go put on a sweater!” our dad would yell. Then there would be the passive aggressive turn-on, turn-off battle between Ed and my dad. It really was so childish that it was embarrassing to witness. Ed would turn the heat on. Dad would complain and say no heat was needed (mainly because he didn’t want to spend the money on the heat. Isn’t money the main reason to not do most things in life?) and flip the switch off. Ed would go back and turn it on. The battle would ensue for as long as the two of them were home together. Or, occasionally I would insist the heat should be on, as I usually tried to side with Ed, and our dad would begrudgingly leave it on until he felt the house was warm enough, and then switch it off. Unfortunately, that never worked out because this house refuses to retain heat, so the house would just get cold again.

If you cannot be warm and comfortable in your own home, where are you supposed to be comfortable? Or in this case, Ed was never treated like he was a true, worthy part of this house, so his comfort was disregarded and ignored. And now because he’s dead, he’s never coming back to enjoy this warmth that I now have a chance to wake up to here.