Losing my home

When memories force loss by choice

Sometimes the destination is not of our choosing but the train arrives anyway. Photo credit: Cathy Gilbert, with permission

When we first looked at the front room of the house before we bought it we knew we could spread several tables together in a long line to accommodate our ever-growing family. We envisioned the many celebrations — holidays, family events and just simply good times we would share together there. The room was big enough for us all to gather around the Christmas tree by a mountain of gifts and still have room to eat breakfast at the table. It was hard to heat, and had many quirks that we hadn’t the money to remedy but we loved it just the same.

The sadness that took over our home and our lives, especially mine, eventually won out. I simply couldn’t live under that roof any more, or look out over our yard and the forest contained in it. The pain became too great. The public story was that we were moving because I had a new job in another location. This became true. But the private and real reason was the absolute grief that had taken my soul. Not one, but several things happened that proved destructive to the very fabric of our family, and they all took place on, or very near our home. Family was and is the most important element of my life, and I was struggling to get up in the morning knowing I couldn’t fix the damage to ours.

We moved into someone else’s house, that I called the ugliest place we have ever…