The Hugging House
By Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence
We outgrew the house I moved into as a new mom many years ago.
I think it happened around the time Rosie was born, when she claimed the last of the many “guest rooms” we had back when we arrived on Barnard Avenue as brand-new parents of a nine-month-old.
Owning a home at that stage of life felt, to me, like the epitome of adulting.
We hosted sleepover guests weekly, and my brother still tells stories about using our first real grown-up purchase as his personal crash pad whenever he didn’t feel like going home.
He’d show up with friends, go to a Friday-night simcha, and wake up the next morning not completely sure how he’d gotten back inside—until he’d opened one eye and realized his friend had gotten sick, unaware of the state of the room they’d taken over for the weekend. What a time.
When I first moved into this house, I immediately missed our old apartment on Central Avenue. It was where newlywed life lived. Where my first attempts at cooking happened. Where I brought home our first baby, absolutely clueless about how to care for the tiny human I’d been entrusted with as I crossed into the one-bedroom apartment with a bundle in my arms.
It’s also where I was convinced I’d poison my husband’s best friend at our first couple’s Shabbos meal. I was flexing a cooking muscle I had no business flexing, proudly frying schnitzel without a clue how long it actually needed. Good news: he chewed like a champ, swallowed, didn’t choke, and politely left the rest on his plate. Smart man.
When we moved, I worried about the energy of the new house. I’ve always believed that even inanimate things absorb the life lived inside them—that walls hear sadness, celebrate happiness, and stretch to hold every crowd that seems too big to fit but somehow always does.
A house becomes a silent witness to chaos, change, ritual, and growth.
This is the house where I rearranged furniture when I needed a small emotional reset.
It’s where I rocked newborns to sleep and learned the delicate art of transferring a sleeping baby to a crib. It’s also where I cried after Moshe didn’t come home one day—where I had to learn how to stop expecting the door to open at 7:24 each night with his voice behind it.
It’s the house that has hosted more parties than I can remember, and also the house where we sat shivah.
It’s where a weekly minyan gathered for many years, where we opened our doors so my boys could say Kaddish without feeling out of place at such young ages. It’s where the Sefer Torah we dedicated to his memory lives, continuing to be the only physical comfort my boys can reach for when grief takes hold and refuses to loosen its grip.
It’s the home he left too soon—but also the home where I still feel him.
During Chanukah, I still hear his version of Haneiros Hallalu. I still find myself proudly showing off his rapidly growing children, even though it’s been years since I’ve seen him. In his absence, his presence here feels undeniable.
When does a house officially become a home? Is it during different life stages? Is it when it becomes the only place you want to return to at the end of every day?
I drive through my old neighborhood and see massive homes going up for the large families we tend to raise here, and I wonder if there’s ever a guarantee that a house will become the one you fall in love with—the place you’d choose over anywhere else in the world.
I asked a friend this question as we sat in her kitchen last week. She, too, had outgrown her previous home and built a beautiful new one in a different neighborhood.
“Do you ever fight in this kitchen?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
She laughed. “It just seems like too beautiful a space to have an argument in,” I added.
But maybe that’s what binds a home to the people living inside it—bearing witness to life’s messiness. Providing shelter through tribulation. Offering solid walls, warmth, and the promise that it will still be there even when the people you expect to rely on can’t be.
Through every phase of my life, this house has held steady. It has seen my wins, my parenting fails, birthday parties moved indoors at the last minute because of rain, and moments when I desperately needed a space that wouldn’t judge me.
It has always felt like a hug—like that pair of slippers you’ve had forever and refuse to throw out. It’s small, but it has carried a large part of my life, filled with emotion, pain, gratitude, and grace.
This past Sunday, I hosted the annual Gordon family Chanukah party. My sister had offered her far more spacious home to accommodate our large extended family, but I couldn’t bring myself to make the long trip.
As we set up, I had a mini panic attack, unsure how we’d fit everyone inside. But as it always does, the house stretched itself to hold all who came.
We moved the dining room table to make room for games. We taped money to the floor—likely still embedded in the wood. Younger Gordons tore through the basement, opening every board game we own and leaving the aftermath for someone else.
Later, I found empty wrappers tucked into couch cushions and laughed at the fact that this was all happening in a house I once assumed I’d outgrow and leave behind—if not for the twists of life that kept us here.
I’ve always said I’d have no problem moving.
But the truth is, this house has carried me through versions of myself I never could have anticipated. It has held joy and devastation with the same quiet steadiness, asking nothing in return. And while I may tell myself that walls are just walls, I already know that isn’t true. You don’t walk away easily from a place that has witnessed your life unfold and still stands ready to hold you, without question, every time you come home.
Malkie Gordon Hirsch Magence is a native of the Five Towns community, a mom of five, a writer, and a social media influencer.
