A love letter

To my home...

Ten years ago my our world changed.  My fractured little family ceased to exist as I knew it.  Divorce is a wound that you think will eventually heal but, like most scars, you can still feel the echo of the pain many years later.  As divorces go, ours was amicable.  We supported each other, to the best of our abilities, and vowed to remain friends.  Many things would test that friendship.  Many.  The months that followed are something of a blur for me now but there was a great deal of rebuilding to be done.  I had allowed myself to get so lost that I didn't know where to start.  More loss would eventually bring us home, to Texas, to live with my parents.  After eleven years of living away from my family, coming home was as close to a sanctuary as anything could be.  My children remember those early days well.  It was exciting.  Trial and error being what it is, more tests would come.  College (again). Another marriage.  A pregnancy.  Another divorce while just six weeks pregnant.  New heartache.  New life.  New love.  A renewed love.  And a house.  This house.  Larry and I remarried here in the family room of this house that we live in now, that we are about to say good-bye to.  In the time that we have been here we have built a life together that we never knew we could have before.  That friendship that had been so tested grew into a great, great love.  These walls have comforted and amused and protected and sanctified our family in ways that we may not yet realize.

As I walk through each room I see so many moments.  Overflowing with memories and laughter.  Kids everywhere.  Family dinners.  Christmas.  Thanksgiving with my entire family spread across the kitchen, dining area and family room.  Birthday parties with magicians and princesses.  Sick children cuddled up in our room.  Lots of firsts...bicycles, baseball, lost teeth, wins and losses, birthdays, holidays, and so many nothing days that meant more than all of the holidays combined.  It was in those nothing days that our family thrived.

There were trying times as well, of course, but being home always made those times better.  We are taught a lot about making our homes sanctuaries...protection from outside influence...the place you want to be.  Without any real thought this house has become that.  Our children want to be here.  Their friends want to be here.  Family members want to be here.  It is a home that, in my opinion, is so filled with love that you can feel it when you are here.  I know it's not the walls or the roof or the structure that have created that.  It's the people that have filled this home with memories.  I also know that it is a feeling that will come in our new home.  But for this moment, as we pack up boxes and take down pictures and host one last holiday, I want to say thank you.  Thank you to a home that has provided love and stability.  I will forever be grateful for all the life that has been lived here and for the family that we are because of it.

A new young family will move in here and will, I hope, find the same love that we have.  I see their children playing and laughing, new memories, holidays and their own family gatherings.  May this home be for you what it has been for us.