As I watch my son play with his wooden trains that were once mine, I can’t help but smile and think about my childhood. When he pulls his wooden Radio Flyer wagon down the street I think about when I rode in that same wagon as a little girl. I am feeling quite reminiscent lately because my parents recently sold the house I grew up in.
It seems strange to be grieving the loss of a physical place you have not even lived in for so many years. So, why is it making me feel the slightest bit of grief the house is no longer ours? I have not actually lived in this house since I graduated college. But I felt sad I was not able to set foot in the house one last time. I’m not sure what purpose that would have held. Perhaps to say a proper goodbye. Say thank you. Give it a hug?
It sounds ridiculous. That house is where I experienced joy, love, anger, sorrow, etc. But is it home? Is home an actual place? Was it the house I experienced those emotions from or was it the people living in it? I have lived in 4 different homes in the past 7 years. Were all those places my home too? Were those memories taken away from me each time I moved?
What I have learned through this experience is that no one can erase those memories we created as a family; my perfectly imperfect family. Home is not necessarily a physical place. When I am with or even talk to the people I love I feel at home. Although it is sad I will never spend time in that house again it is also a new chapter. A new chapter for my family and a new chapter for the family who recently moved in.
The new owners can remodel the kitchen my parents once cooked many delicious meals in. They can redo the floors where our cat and dog were always running around chasing each other. They can repaint the basement to paint over the obnoxious colors my sisters and I once painted on the walls. However, they can never erase the memories that were created there.
Now as a mother it is my turn to help create those memories for my family. While I am just at the very beginning stages I know there will be countless memories created both good and bad. What I want my children to understand one day when they are old enough is home is not necessarily a physical place or the things in it. We don’t really know where life will take us. Home is simply where love is.
