disappearing sense of belonging

On my recent visit to my home, my mom quietly took out my engagement and reception photo albums and showed them to my sister-in-law. I was wondering why she got them out on that particular day, for no rhyme or reason. After gleefully watching the photos and riding the nostalgia wave, she told me to take these albums back with me. "We are decluttering the house since it's anyway going for redevelopment in a few months," is what she said later to me while I was stepping out of the house to head to my place. 

Maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic here, but I felt a small nudge in my heart. Over the years, as I got married and moved out, I could see how gradually the house I grew up in and once called home no longer held my scent. Apart from a large wall frame of my brother and me, and my trophies from my college days, there is no trace of me in there. I understand that they have to move out, and then gradually everyone needs their space. But the sense of belonging that I once had with that house... I could know where all the things are even if I am blindfolded; I can't do that anymore. 

It's not that my relationship with my parents or my brother is estranged. They are all there when I need them. The physical distance is, at times, painful. Is it possible to miss them even when they are around? My mother never really got me, and my father had his guard up all the time. He never let anyone in, nor did he try to form that bond with us. The only person I spoke to heart-to-heart was my brother. Now that he is busy with his own work and newly married life, that has affected the way we normally spoke. I understand; I am not cribbing about it. It's just that... all of this hurts badly. The sense of belonging which I once had is somehow slowly disappearing. Now that the building will be taken down for redevelopment, I will have nothing to remind me of the house I once grew up in. Somehow, I am getting this sense of rootlessness, not just from the physical place I once called home. But also with the people who share my bloodline. 

Again, this is not to say that I'm not happy for them. They love me to the moon and back; I am well aware and grateful for that. I probably miss my time with them.

I miss my father when I hear old Hindi songs, when I see how comfortable today's kids are talking with their fathers and how I still am not. How lonely he is and how I am so like him in so many ways. I miss him so much. But I can't say this to him. I can't tell him that I love him and miss him. I miss how he used to refill my wallet with good changes of 10s, 20s, and 50s for my travel allowance without me asking for it. I miss him when the burden of problem-solving falls on me entirely at times and remember how he did it when we were growing up. I can see the loneliness in him and can somehow see the same reflected in me. Anyway, don't want to open that door of memories for now. Writing this as I am in the office, and I don't want to spiral.