It was an evening of quiet, with clouds that were as sun-hiding as coastal fog.
Hubby had left to take our son and his friend to camp, where they will be working all summer.
Just the evening before, my family honored my request for a photo, by changing their schedules to make it happen. That’s what families do … give and stretch for each other, even when it doesn’t make sense.
It was the last opportunity for all five of us to be in the house, and I wanted just one specific image. I am pretty sure they thought I had lost all sense of creativity, but they did it nonetheless (and I didn’t even have to pull out the “do you realize how difficult childbirth was” stories).
So that photo was taken (at the bottom of this page), then, the next day, our son walked out of his home of fourteen of his eighteen years for the last time.
Standing at my kitchen sink (my favourite place in the house), looking out into the back yard, the memories made in this home started to flood into my mind, and a realization that the opportunity to have memories promoted by this setting is coming to an end.
So I emerged from my window perch and wandered down memory lane.
When we entered this place our youngest couldn’t reach the light switch. He had to share a room with his sister, while the roof was added to the upper deck, to make a bedroom for him. He has had three different bedrooms in this house. We would often look to the back yard and see him use the back yard as a urinal (or his sisters would have him ‘water’ spiders). He learned to swim in our pool, just one week after we moved in. His favourite room in the house is the loft, where he and friends played various video games.
Back at the beginning, our oldest was ten, a competitive swimmer and eager to throw a party. She has thrown her share of parties, and utilized our pool for summer employment for a number of years. She has lived in an upper bedroom and in the basement suite. She was the first to leave our nest a year and a half ago. Her favourite place at our home … the pool.
Our middle daughter was only seven … just a little girl finishing grade one, swimming daily for the swim club, always angling to have a friend over and toting notebooks of scribbles and sketches. She has only ever had one bedroom in this house … the largest bedroom. She has been in school ever since we moved in and has had more friends over than all the rest of us (probably combined). Her favourite place at this place is her bedroom.
Our kids have grown up here, we all grew here, and in a few days we will move on to a new time and place, where stories and growth and laughter and tears will happen.
It was good to look back, and remember what we had here together.
itsawonderfilledlife 