A House Full of Memories

Our home has always been crazy, chaotic and crowded… and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I had seven kids in ten years so you do the math.  I wanted my kids to be close.  And with a 1200 square foot house, we were close!  I loved how our house was never large enough for the kids to have their own rooms.  How we all piled on top of each other in the love sac to watch TV.  We lived together… and it was wonderful.

One by one, they left for college.  Then one by one, they got married.  All the events that you dream and wish for them.  So really, nothing is wrong, and I wouldn’t change a thing, but my crowded little house is not so full.  My home is down to youngest and I, but still full of memories.

Of course, there is the kitchen wall where we have marked the kid’s heights.  It is a monument of memories.  We have one or maybe two marks for the oldest daughter who we call the runt of the family.  And then there is the continual reminder that the younger brother is taller than the older brother.  We have the grandkids on the wall now, and there’s even a mark for our pug.  If I sell the house, can I take that wall?

And what about how the kids would tie sheets onto the monkey bars in the backyard so they could hang in them like a hammock?  Or the time the kids threw a party, and the cops came to the door to tell us we had too many people on the property.  Is that a rule?  I remember the boy’s bedroom was in the family room, complete with bunk beds and how they would play football and soccer down there.   One day they had rearranged and put the bookcase at the end of the hall.  It’s strange for little boys to be concerned with a home’s décor.  But after all these years, the bookcase has stayed in this chosen spot. 

I will have to move one day, although I want a place where the kids will always come home, I can’t take care of a house and yard.  In my eyes the house would sell in a day, if people only knew what I knew.  And if I do move, I will have to move that bookcase.  I wonder if whoever buys the house will love that hole in the wall as much as I do?

i participated in a campaign for Bucks2Blog for missouri real estate and was compensated.  However, the views and opinions are my own.