Home Sweet Home

Yesterday was a bittersweet day. After 46 years of ownership, Mom made settlement and sold the house I grew up in. This was a very good thing in the sense that she has owned two houses since she moved into a retirement community almost a year ago. There was a lot of work to be done to get the house into sellable shape, and most of the burden for coordinating all that fell on brother Dave and his Darling Wife. So I know they were happy that this was done and over with. Extremely happy. Finally. And Mom was relieved as well to have one less thing to worry about.

But of course we are also sad that a very long chapter in our lives is now officially closed. I have not lived in that house for more than a few days or a week here or there since probably the summer of 1986, partway through college. But for all those intervening years it has still been the family homestead. Dad, Mom and Chris still lived there. And then just Mom and Chris. And then nobody lived there but the house was still there to be cleaned out and worked on. And now it's over.

On October 10, 1967, a couple with three very young boys bought the house, moved in, and had many long and happy years there. As of yesterday, another young couple with two young boys bought the house and moved in. It seems very fitting to me that the house should have boys in it again. I wish them luck, and hope that they have as wonderful a life in that house as we did. As long as they remember that the bedroom up the stairs to the left is mine...