Memories of the Old House

Inspired to write this morning, by the blog entry of a friend. He took a trip back to his childhood home and wrote of his feelings about it all.  My own experience was somewhat different.

The home I spent the majority of my young life in was built when I was about ten years old. It was a simple ranch house, three bedrooms and a bath. It was a typical model of the late 1950's and later.  It wasn't fancy, by any means, but it was our home and many memories were made there.  A few years later, a separate dining room, another bathroom and a bedroom for Grandpa were added on. My Dad and my Uncle Ros worked tirelessly after their day jobs and every weekend to complete the addition. 

The building of that house brought about the building of  new friendships in  our neighborhood, friendships that have lasted a lifetime. Preteen days found me spending much more time with the girls in the group than with my family members. It was the dawn of a new day for me...seeing more of how other people lived than what I knew at home. I didn't appreciate all that I saw, or come to realize until years later, how much better things were for me than I knew.

 Then came those confusing years as a teenager, new lessons to learn, new ideas to explore. I was struggling, like most teens do, to figure things out. My parents were wise and their lessons were taught to me from their wisdom. Again, I didn't always appreciate the strict rules and fact that I wasn't given permission to do what many of my classmates did on weekends.  I wasn't so rebellious as to go against what I was raised with, so I missed out on what I thought must have been the best of fun. It caused resentments, but I got over it, and came to understand that though I was kept on a rather short leash, it was for my own good.

The house was the place I introduced young men to my parents before I went out on dates with them.  It was where my first husband proposed to me. It was where I prepared for my wedding, and where I brought home our first-born child a little more than a year later, as our new house was under construction.  It was the place I ran to...to the house and to my parents' advice when things were rocky in my life. It was where we spent our first days mourning my Dad's death.
This was the home that enveloped me while I learned about beginnings and endings.

Many years and events later, my widowed Mom decided it was time to sell that house. It saddened me. It was yet another loss for me.  What would happen to that house? I hoped that another family would move in and enjoy making their own memories. It did not happen that way. A single woman, an investor bought it, and did absolutely nothing with it for a year, when she sold it at a profit. Again, I hoped for a new family.....and again, I was disappointed. 

With a sense of grief, I came to realize that it was not 'our' house any longer. Life brings changes of all kinds. Some of them take us to places of sadness.  This  realization was one of those times.  
I watched the house to see what changes would come along.  *Watch this site to find out what those changes were. Tomorrow, it will be revealed.*