Home and a Memory

The other day, my youngest daughter and her husband signed the papers for their new house. They took me over to see it. The For Sale sign was still standing on the lawn. As we walked through the house, my daughter and her husband talked about all the ideas they had to update it.

I listened to their plans and looked at the house and the enormous backyard and heard all their great ideas that they kept talking about. All the while I remembered the excitement of being young and the first house that I bought.

The house was a brick and wood two story colonial in a suburb of St. Louis, Kirkwood. Missouri. It was situated on a circular street, and the number was 50 Hill Drive. The house sat on a big rectangular looking lawn with over a dozen mature trays and flowering bushes.

Inside, standing in the hallway, I looked to my right and their was a living room with a fireplace and a screened in porch off of it. To the left was a dining room. Straight ahead was an eating room, with a number of windows looking out at the long patio and expansive back yard. To the right was the large kitchen, and pantry. To the right was a bathroom. Upstairs there were four bedrooms and two full baths.

Before me was the stairway. At that time, I had four little children, all under the age of five. (Who knew that I would add four more children to my growing brood)?

I looked at the stairway and saw my children running up and down them. I saw my baby daughter, grown and floating down the stairs in a wedding gown, with her trail billowing behind her. The boys were coming down, each in a Tux, ready for the prom. That was what sold me, all those dreams and the comfort of home.

I came back to the present when I heard my daughter say that the lady that they bought the house form cried and told them she had lived in ‘her’ home for all those years. My daughter and son felt sad for her and mu daughter admitted she cried with her.

At that moment, I understood exactly how the woman felt. Home and comfort are powerful memories.