I made a bittersweet discovery this afternoon.  I decided to drive
through the neighborhood where my parents used to live, and
discovered that their former house has been torn down.  They lived in
that house for 25 years, up until their deaths, about six months
apart, in 2001.  This was longer than either of them ever lived in
any other house, or indeed in any other city, in their lives.  I also
lived in that house from 1976 up until I bought my current house in
1992, longer than I have ever lived in any other house.

The demolition of the house wasn't a complete surprise.  They were
renters, not home-owners, for their entire stay in the house.  Their
original landlord was the Oman Construction Company, whose
headquarters was behind the house.  Oman later sold their property,
including my parents' house, to Hospital Corporation of America, and
HCA eventually traded the land to the Metro Nashville Board of Parks
in exchange for other land.  The former Oman office became Park Board
headquarters.

The Park Board had told my parents that they would likely be the last
residents in the house, as the Park Board had gradually been phasing
out various residential properties that they owned.  After my father
died, and my sister and I continued renting the house for several
months while sorting out the estate, it stood vacant for three years.
The neighborhood in question is near Vanderbilt University, about
three miles from the central business district, and numerous houses
in the neighborhood have been torn down and replaced by apartment
buildings and townhouses in the last few years.  I suspect that this
is what will probably happen to the lot where my parents' house had
been.

This isn't the first time that I have found that a former house no
longer exists.  A house that I lived in for three years as a teenager
no longer exists.  I had stronger sentimental ties to this house,
however, including the fact that my mother died in this house, and I
will have both good and bad memories (mostly good) of this house for
the rest of my life.