CLOSING THE DOOR

This past week we moved from the home that I told all of you to write in permanent marker in your address books to a home we bought 2 years ago as an investment property. This investment home is literally down the street from where we have been living. The events that have led to this move are miraculous and worthy of an entire blog post on it's own.

But for the past week I've been thinking about memories.

The family buying our home is very excited and "love" it. What's not to love? But it's not quite in the perfect condition in which we received it from the builder.

What will she think when she is wiping down the kitchen countertop and there will be one spot where she can't get the stuff off? Because when I wipe that spot I remember the time when #2 broke her Christmas music box and I super-glued it back together and set it upside-down on the counter to dry. For days it was like the sword in the stone stuck fast to the counter until, like Arthur, one of my children finally pulled it free.

When he looks at the yard will he wonder about the placement of the large boulder on the west side? When I look at it I remember our good-for-nothing landscaper who placed it right at my front door and then said he couldn't move it because he didn't have a crew. My husband rallied our family and friends over to move the rock. It was quite the spectacle not soon to be forgotten!

Will they ask each other what put the gouge in the wood floor? Because I remember in slow motion watching when #4 swung wide open the back door which then hit my prized framed picture of Christ hanging on the wall which then crashed down on my wood floor leaving large gashes in both of them.

They may look at the 4 little handprints imprinted on the cement sidewalk and think it's cute. I look at them and remember when we put them there.

But it's the memories that are important. It doesn't really matter where we were when they happened.

In our new home there is a big hole in our bathtub and I wonder what could have been so heavy that it left a chasm right next to the drain. That is someone else's memory and while it may not have been a good one when it happened, I hope that now they can look back and smile. Because despite the sadness I feel in moving, I am smiling now thinking of the new memories I will make in this new place.