The other evening I was watching one of my programs on television about a family that found themselves in financial difficulties after the patriarch father died. They were talking of selling their vacation home that the 5 children were raised in to get out of debt. I sat thinking to myself "sell it, it's just a house".
Somehow they all wound up at that vacation home not knowing they all had planned to congegrate with their significant others for a weekend.
After each couple had arrived separately, they began to reminisce about the good times that they had memories of while growing up in that house. This immediately brought a tear of warm remembrance to my eyes as I reflected back to the house that I raised my children in. My first husband and I lived there for over 20 years when we both went our separate ways. I began to remember warm thought after warm thought about that house and realized how many wonderful memories probably still live there.
My husband and I drove by that house night after night when we decided to buy it. We thought that it was way over our budget but we just had to have it and couldn't wait for the other people living there to move. We loved the fact that it had a beautiful, big weeping willow tree in the backyard and a warm, inviting brick fireplace in the living room. Over the years, the weeping willow became a burden to trim weekly and cured us of the need for that tree. The fireplace lost heat terribly when you opened the flue to burn logs, but we didn't even consider that at the time.
I was pregnant and left that house to have my children and bring them home to raise them, school them, and eventually let them go when they reached maturity. I decorated that house many times over trying to be the Martha Stewart of my day. My children walked their first steps, talked their first words and grew up too fast in that house. My oldest daughter, Leslie, painted a blue line on the sidewalk so that her brother could have a 'finish line' when he was 'driving' his Hot Wheels. She got in trouble for that, but was quickly forgiven because she did it for her brother. That blue paint line remains on that sidewalk to this day. Years of weather and erosion could never erase it.
We had so many holiday dinners and partys in that house that they became a tradition that my children carry on to this day. I have such wonderful memories of friends and family who have long ago passed but came to those holiday celebrations each and every year. Even though there were marital fights that I thought may have harmed my children's psyches, they didn't, because my children grew up to be warm, loving adults with their own families and they still drive by that house every chance they get.
We raised a host of pets in that house and I can remember them all. Many meals were cooked, families gathered, I gardened, sewed, and made it a family home that I will always treasure in my heart. That house was more than mortar and bricks, it was a warm family home where children prospered and grew into fine adults. I still miss the smiles and talk, the happy laughs which still echo above the lonely sighs. Whether leaves are green in springtime or snow lays lightly on the ground, that old house still holds the memories of all our family sounds.
