Home

After more than sixty years, we finally sold our family home.  I guess the stars had finally aligned, and everyone was ready to finally part with it at the same time. 

We would always tease our mom about it taking years for us to clean out the house after her and dad were gone. She saved everything and claimed that it had too much sentimental value. Somehow, she thought that she might need to reference a medical journal magazine from 1981. 

Oh gosh, how I miss her and daddy so much. 

Dad was always the one who wanted to clean everything out and have the least amount of clutter. 

Isn’t funny how totally opposite people can find true love? They were married for almost fifty years. 

Our house was filled with love and laughter all of the time. Even when one of was going through a rough patch, we could always count on support; dad’s strong advice and our mom’s silver lining. 

I went to East Texas for spring break last week. It was the first time that I couldn’t drive up the long entryway to go home. There was just something about the hill to get to the house that made me feel safe. In my mind, the curve of the driveway and the tall pine trees encapsulated everything about my childhood. 

When I drove down the street that I had for well over fifty years, the house already looked different. 

 The new owners were planting flowers and hanging baskets on the front porch. I wanted to stop and introduce myself, but I decided that might be a little too intrusive!  

I just wish I could tell them some of the stories of that house, like how all the neighbors trash cans would float down the street every time it rained before the city built the drainage ditch. All the boys in the neighborhood had to jump over Turkey Creek like Evil Knievel as a right of passage. I would explain that all the chain link fences are bent because all the kids wore them down from going back and forth to each others houses. That you can put a mattress on the other side of the garage and jump down on it after climbing the tree to get on it, over and over and over to your hearts delight. I would tell them that the best place for fried chicken after church is Johnny Ozark’s. We would fight over the drumsticks and pray that there would be some beans left when it was our turn to eat. 

I would tell them that growing up with eight brothers and sisters in that house was a gift.

How we ever made it with only one and half bathrooms for most of the years, I will never know. 

But somehow we did.

And it was more than enough. 

I am going to miss that house on the hill. 

It made me who I am. 

It filled me up with enough love to last a lifetime. 

 

 

Stay Sassy Y’all.