As we pack up and leave this crazy adventure we call a house I’m struck by what we will miss and what I will not even remember in a week. The way the light in the kitchen takes almost three seconds to turn on, the way the floor is always cold, the irises behind the house, the rhododendron creating a pedestal of almost white flowers for the kitchen window, the owl so persistent every morning at 2 am, the storms rolling in to push our too big of a Douglas closer to the roof. How our house was the snow line of the neighborhood making it feel all the more magical when we drove 300ft down the road to rain. The Townsend bat in the barn and the screamy horses across the street. How tiny my children looked in the far field, but how big their joy radiated back. The last tiny sock of a little one no longer in our life and the bigger mismatched one belonging to her sister that both dropped out of the moved couch. The reminders of the pain, struggle, growth of all in our home in the short time with two children loved, now out of our home. The room I nursed two littles in. And the resting place of one born into heaven. The feeling of weakness that comes with strengthening growing pains. The fun we had burning giant piles and driving giant blackberry-eating tractors. The sweat, stress, mess of living in its restoration. The view from the barn roof and the rumoring mist of the morning forest. The tunnel fort lovingly broken into the fallen apple tree. The taste of the apples from that somehow-still-alive tree. The endless, unconquered dirty floor. The kitchen window facing the pink summer sunsets. The crazy knowledge that comes from having to fix things on your own. The location of my first bone break. The happy coyotes and murderous raccoons that ate ALL our pets (minus the one who died of fright in a thunderstorm). The raccoon that broke into the basement and tried to steal tools scaring us half-to-death in the middle of the night. The hours family helped out and the skills they passed on. The night the water heater turned the house into a sauna. The mail carrier that seemed so grumpy in person but wrote the sweetest cards. Our kind neighbors and the waterfall down the street. Remembered or not, this house has given our family a place to step off from. We are excited to take the next one.
