Home Sweet Home

I remember walking through it. Going room by room, many of them empty or sparse, already pointing out what we would paint, change, make ours. I remember imagining my life with children filling the rooms, having no idea when or what that would look like, but still dreaming of it.

Sheaff proposed to me on this front porch. The snow was over a foot deep. There were no cars, just the quiet of snow falling when he asked me to marry him.  Then the leaps and shouts of our friends and family jumping from the neighbor’s fence, where they were hiding and waiting for the ‘yes.’ The phone calls to family out of town. The joy. What felt like the beginning. And it was.

Our friends have eaten, drank, laughed, danced, played in these rooms, across this counter, in the yard, cross-legged on the floor, telling stories, lives intertwining, memories unfolding.

We woke up our wedding morning in this house. We walked this neighborhood before each baby came. We brought Wallie home when she was all of 4 pounds, when she chewed the French doors and tried to sneak under the fence before we built a new one. We brought our babies home through this front door, each time with a bigger family to welcome them into our world, eager to help with diapers and holding. We truly became parents here. The took their first steps here. They’ve cried here at nights while we tried to figure out how to convince them to sleep. They’ve picked dandelions and dug holes and played a thousand imaginary games in our yard. They’ve paraded through rooms, played tag and monster chase, put on shows and dances, played school and built forts. The girls took their first day of school pictures on the front stoop; Addie’s climbed down her first school bus steps here on Bus 8. They’ve tried their first foods, learned their first sounds, took their first baths, bounced in the kitchen and rolled across the living room floor. They became here, too.

Our shelves have held the ashes of little Abram, and the frame of his tiny footprints, something I never, never imagined, but is as much as part of us and our home now as anything. We all sleep under this roof together; this home holds us all. We baptized Abram while I was still pregnant, sitting in a small circle in our living room, sending him our wishes and love the only ways we could. We felt him kicking, turning, fed him Ben and Jerry’s and loved him in this house. We said goodbye in this house, grieved here, healed here. We’ve heard the tinkling of bells, watched plants grow, arranged the memories of him both tangible and beyond, made scrapbooks, lit candles, opened beautiful words from our village to help us remember this boy.

We’ve hauled in and decorated 10 Christmas trees in this home, only 2 falling down, Sheaff cussing through all of them. We’ve watched our kids run to the living room Christmas mornings squealing, in awe of the magic, checking the chimney and sprinkling glitter in the yard for reindeer. We’ve trick or treated, hidden easter eggs, cooked and carved turkeys, spelled our names with sparklers and caught lightening bugs in the front yard.

We’ve picked up toys 1,000 times. Probably more.

We’ve painted, we’ve built, we’ve slated; we’ve tiled; we’ve planted; we’ve re-planted. We’ve knocked down; we’ve reconstructed; we’ve moved furniture around and around again. We have projected.

This house has protected us from derechos and tornados. We’ve listened to countless springtime thunderstorms and watched snow storms turn our street and trees white, reminding us of our first snow here, when Sheaff proposed.

We’ve fought and yelled at each other and cried. We’ve made up and compromised and loved and supported each other fiercely, learning what marriage means and growing into each other.

We’ve played basketball in the driveway, hopscotched across the sidewalk, visited with neighbors who have watched our family grow.

Our dining room has known Yahtzee, Cards Against Humanity, Spite and Malice, Sorry, Set, Cranium, Candy Land and so many nights of Nertz with ridiculous team names and “just one more round” across the table. So much laughter with friends together.

We’ve watched winter from our French doors with the fireplace toasting cozy afternoons and we’ve run the sprinkler in 99-degree weather to try to keep our damn grass in the front yard from dying, again.

We’ve gotten sweet news and sad news here, scary news and joyful news. We’ve stayed up late processing life’s changes together.  These walls got to meet grandparents who are no longer with us, friends who have moved.

We’ve had friends or families live upstairs till they found their new home or life. We’ve had sleepovers. We’ve had visitors from all over the world.

We baptized our babies here. We celebrated our rehearsal dinner in the backyard cooking out. We have gathered. Before weddings, after weddings. For meals, for birthdays, for holidays, for Abram, for showers, for graduations, for no reason other than this house being full of voices and kids running around was one of our favorite ways for it to be.

Sheaff and I moved in and we were basically kids ourselves. We’ve become so much in this house.

I know we will keep becoming. But every memory we have within these walls I treasure, because this home has been the pages to so much of our story, where we’ve written our biggest and most meaningful chapters of our life so far.

They say every house has its spirit. I have felt the spirit of 1707 for the last 10 years…The windows, the warmth, the high ceilings and tiny bathrooms; the wonky corners and non-level floors; the cracks and patches, the slanty basement and horse-hair plaster; the creaky floors and many doors and all the nooks and crannies; the history of a house that has stood for almost 100 years…. This spirit is something that will stay within the deepest corners of my heart. For I love the life we have lived here.  Dear house, you have so much to give the next family, but thank you for all you have given ours. I am forever grateful that we called you home.