Goodbye, House.

Closing time
Time for you to go out to the places you will be from
Closing time
This room won't be open till your brothers or your
sisters come
So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other
beginning's end.

~~lyrics from "Closing Time" by Semisonic

We handed over the keys, and the new owners handed over the last one million peso check to my mom. It's final. Finito. The house has been sold. And we will never walk its steep stairwells, roam the dusty corridors or taste the sweet santol from the trees in our backyard.

As my sister, husband and I did our last "possession check" at the house, I wanted to cry. But no tears came. It was like taking care of an old relative in a coma, who after years of attendance, just never woke up and just died in her sleep. As the house's caregivers, we were already all cried out. No tears came.

This is what it is. The house's natural death. Or as my friend Ian put it, another hard-edged chapter ender.