Goodbye, Sweet Home

Home. It doesn’t matter where it is, I get sentimental. I get attached. Maybe it’s because when I go “home” to Soperton, I go to the home we moved into when I five.  I like that.   It’s a Spanish Colonial set in Georgia pines splattered with dogwoods, a few magnolias, and redbuds.  At the end of a long driveway off Dublin Road, I lived for what seems to a child, a lifetime.  There’s something marvelous about “familiar”.  When I return, I sleep in the same pink bedroom with a country view that has not changed except that the trunks of the trees have broadened and lengthened and the azalea bed below my windows has swelled to an enormous patch.  Returning is special.  My room has housed things from the Rub a Dub Baby to Bee Gee’s music to the placebo drugs I compounded in pharmacy school.  If I looked around long enough, I’d probably find all three.  I like that.  I remember where the best hide and seek places are {in my Daddy’s closet and in the den between the couch and the wall}, Christmas mornings that exceeded “merry and bright”, Dukes of Hazard fun on motorcycles, after dinner table conversations that brought security to a teenage heart, where I was tickled so intensely I thought I would die, beautiful bridal showers, wedding receptions and luncheons my Mom hosted, great (and not so great) practical jokes, where I used to could turn a cartwheel without losing a foot, mine and Blake’s conversations long after bedtime, countless dinner guests and a zillion more soul shaping, life making memories.  Home is a big deal.  Home is familiar.  I like that, too.

So for almost 18 years, Jeff and I have been on our way to “familiar”.  I have loved every stop.  But this last stop may have been my favorite.  All four of us were here.  And they were little here.

They fit in kitchen cabinets.

They fit in laundry baskets.

Traditions were started.

I have loved this stop but it’s coming to a end.  We are in our last days here in this house I never thought we’d leave.  I thought this was the last house.  Oh, it’s a great decision, a lateral move, an exciting time but my heart is tugged, no, yanked, regarding all these memories we’ve made here.  Our ceilings are a mere 10 feet high but the rooms are thousands of stories deep.  I have tried to write a lot of them down--- right here.

And I am so glad I have.  I don’t want to forget the goodness.

Birthday celebrations, snow days, coffees, dinner parties for all sorts of reasons and for no reason at all, books, popcorn and cheese, Uno matches, fires, school at home, Sabbath meals, Carrie, Evonne and now, Emily who have blessed us so, the neighbors, house church, books, Christmas mornings, so much special company sleeping in our guest room, S’more parties, watching squirrels, Thanksgivings, small group, Mom’s group, surprise parties, books, Nanna and Papa camps, rainy days, farm chores, and every ordinary day.

We have become a family here.  The kids are old enough to get that-- being a family.  Being the Sanders.  Brighton was only 21 months old when we moved in and Julia hadn’t even turned 4.   I know those years weren’t perfect when they were younger but they were so darn cute, it hardly mattered.

This house is hollow tonight.  It’s not home tonight.  Our sounds echo off these bare walls and floors. I can see too many boxes. I didn’t even have a spoon to stir our coffee earlier.  I am sitting by the last fire when I should be sleeping.  And the worst part... I have a lump in my throat.  Better stop there.  I can’t expend the energy.  Movers come in the morning.

I haven’t met the family who is moving in and maybe I won’t.  But I think of them a lot.  This place I love will be theirs to make home.  They will be the ones to sit in the den and stare at the canopy of trees with winding, overlapping limbs. {Oh, just wait until it snows! And when the spring blooms with every shade of green!}  They will be the one to sit by the REAL fire and enjoy the cozy warmth.  {Please don’t put gas logs in this fire place!}  They will be the ones serving meals in the kitchen or setting the dining room table for something special.  They will be the ones making it personal to them.  I think it will be a while before I can come to visit my neighbors.

So Family That is Moving Here, though I don’t plan on leaving anything behind, I’d put money on your finding a few random tiny Legos, a Polly Pocket shoe from long ago, our Golden Retriever’s blonde hair {impossible to eradicate}, a bobby pin from my ballerina’s bun, thread from her many sewing projects, a few nail holes we missed while puttying them.  I hope you love it here.  I hope it creeps into your heart and makes you want to cherish your family.  I pray it will be your best stop so far.... and maybe your last one. I hope it will be your favorite familiar.  I pray you will intently pursue making memories here..... and years later finding yourself wading through rooms stories deep. Very deep.

We will take our with us.  I promise.

I am on to make another home.  Another familiar.