Even if it isn’t your home anymore

The house I grew up in..

I drove by the house I grew up in last week and as it always does these days, it made me sad. I’m sad my parents don’t live there. I’m sad someone else is living in “my house”, enjoying my yard and sleeping in the room I grew up in with my sister.

My parents built this house in 1949, the year I was born. They lived in it their whole married life. I was born in this house. How can this not be our house anymore? I sit out front and stare at it now and wonder if the family inside is enjoying it as much as we did. I am also silently hoping I don’t get arrested for stalking or something.

I have such wonderful memories of my youth and growing up in this house. We had our whole family together here every major holiday. There would be picnics outside in the summer where Dad would cook on the grill and Thanksgiving and Christmas Mom would do her thing in the kitchen. Family meant the world to my parents and they included everyone in these celebrations. Oh, what I would give to have one again.

I love thinking back to the days when we played outside in the back yard or roller skated down the sidewalk. Everyone in the neighborhood knew each other and if you misbehaved someone let you know it wasn’t acceptable or told your Mother. And you didn’t want that so you behaved. We were outside from morning until dark. My first friends were all from the neighborhood and we were always together. All different ages, it didn’t matter. We made up games and things to do and we were never bored. Sometimes we would just lay in the grass at dusk and look at the stars until our parents made us go back inside for the night. Then we hooked up cans on string and threw it across the window to the house next door so we could continue our conversations.

I think of all of this as I sit there staring at “our” house. I can picture us running around the neighborhood or riding our bikes. Speaking of bikes, I remember the little girl across the street getting her foot caught in the spokes of my bike an having to go to the hospital. See Mom was right, you shouldn’t let anyone ride on the back of your bike. I also remember when the meat truck would pull up out front and Mom had me go out to get our lunch meat. I also remember one such time after looking both ways and seeing not a car in sight, getting struck by a car and having to go to the hospital. I was 5 and believe me, I was a super star when I went back to school with the story of getting thrown 20 feet in the air and surviving with just a few scratches.

My own kids don’t have this. I have moved so many times in my life it it ridiculous. so there isn’t that one place they can look back on and say it was their home. I bought the house I live in now so that our family can be together and have a place to call “home.”  But what is a home? The dictionary defines it as this..”the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household. Permanently..see even the dictionary thinks it should be permanent.

I miss this house and everything it meant to me. I hold all of those memories in my heart now of course, but I would love to be back inside that place one more time. One more time with my family all together. One more time.

Do you still live in your family home? Would you if you could?

Me and some of the neighborhood kids.

“There’s no place like home” ~ Dorothy