A few weeks ago the kids and I returned home from visiting my parents in Houston.
At one point during our stay, I looked around and realized: This might be the last time I visit my parents in my old childhood home.
They’re talking retirement next spring, which is great for them. But…
It means they’re going to sell their house.
MY house.
The place we moved to when I was a year old.
The place I think of when nearly any memory of my first twenty or so years of life comes to mind.
This is the place where I:
- Heard bedtime stories at night
- Feared the monsters living under my bed
- Believed in Santa Claus for one more year (because Dad stomped on the roof with jingle bells)
- Played Frogger on our New! Awesome! State of the Art! ATARI!
- Raised and loved 5 cats, and watched them give birth and die
- Raised and loved the sweetest mutt doggie in the world, and was old enough to understand the mercy of putting him to sleep
- Made mudpies in the backyard
- Learned to swing like a monkey on my swingset
- Learned to defend myself to jerky next-door-neighbor boys (by punching them out!)
- Had birthday party BBQ’s with watermelon seed spitting contests
- Learned to LOVE reading and read, read, READ voraciously
- Suffered through the flu, tonsillitis, bronchitis, wisdom teeth removal, chicken pox and learned chicken soup is awesome and Mommy makes everything better when you’re sick
- Had amazing water balloon fights that often ran out of balloons and ended with buckets of water and water hoses for ‘weapons’
- Learned to climb trees
- Survived numerous hurricanes
- Learned the value of hard work through my Dad’s novel approach to paying me for washing the cars (I got $20 per car – but I lost a dollar for every ‘spot’ that I missed…I OWED money the first three times I washed their cars under that rule!)
- Had all-night giggling slumber parties with friends (and learned the fine art of crank-calling – ah, life pre-caller ID!)
- Snuck swigs of vodka and gin from the decades old bottles stuck in the back of the pantry just to see what the fuss was about (yuck!)
- Cried my eyes out when I was scared to go to school because of a bully
- Was taught how to hit someone really hard and shown how to incapacitate them by my Mom (who gave me a roll of pennies to hold in my fist when I hit the bully and told me to make sure I put the b***h in the hospital – man, I love my parents!)
- Had my first kiss
- Sobbed from my first broken heart
- Alternately hated and adored my parents for years
- Learned to drive
- Sat up at night to watch our beautiful Christmas Tree twinkle when the house was quiet
- Laid in bed dreaming of what my life would be like when I was all grown up
- Studied for tests
- Practiced my instruments and dancing
- Sewed my own designs (and wore them to school)
- Filled out college applications
- Graduated from High School
…and SO much more.
This is the place I always KNEW would be there; a rock, a safe haven no matter how old I got or what life threw my way.
And next year it will be gone.
Some new family will be living there, making their own memories.
It’s sad for me.
I’m a grown woman now; a wife and mother in my OWN home…and still I feel the loss of my childhood home.
It’s the nature of life, things change and people move on, I’ll always have my memories…blah blah blah. I know all that. I’m a big girl. I’ll deal with it. It’s just…sad to lose something that so strongly represents a time and a feeling of life that I can never revisit.
Sad as it is, though, I want my boys to have that. I want them to feel so warmly about our home that one day they will be saddened that it is gone.
If I can give them that foundation I will have given them a huge gift. If they think of our home and have an instant feeling in their hearts of love, fun, comfort, peace, hope, beauty, safety, and sorrow, then I will have succeeded in giving them what they deserve: a childhood truly, deeply, completely well-lived, rich in experiences and full of life.
All children should have that feeling about their childhood once they’re old(er).
I guess I’d better get busy making some memories with my kiddos, huh?
What do you remember most about your childhood home?
