The house that built me

I remember being a young kid and hearing a knock at the front door.  There stood this elderly woman that we did not know.  She asked if she could come inside and look around the house, said this was the home she grew up in.  I remember my parents letting her in and us kids watching her as she walked around our old farmhouse, her mind clearly filling with old memories as she peered in each and every room.  I remember thinking that I wondered what that must feel like, to come back there after all those years.

The other day I drove through my hometown with my daughter on our way to a playdate.  I decided to drive her past my old house.  It is truly amazing the feelings that return when you see your old house, driveway, porch and yard.  Despite the unfamiliar cars in the driveway and strange furniture that you can see through the windows, it still feels as if you can drive up, park your car, hop out and waltz right through the backdoor to see your mom in the kitchen, your dad in the living room and the loud bustle of 5 active kids doing their thing.  Home. Even after all these years of being away, it's still home. 

People say it is not the four walls of a house that create the memories, but rather the love of the people inside them to make it a home.  Of course I believe that to be true, but I would also argue that those four walls contain value and memory.  If I walked through our old house, I imagine the wooden floors would speak to me of hosting us kids and our sliding contests in our slippery socks to blaring Christmas music, the large old floor vents would offer up the warm memory of us girls fluffing up our nightgowns as we stood over them on those chilly winter nights and mornings.  The upstairs bathroom would remember four girls getting ready each morning, fighting for warm shower water and mirror time!  The screened in porch would reminisce about the giggles of my younger brother and sister during their sleepovers outside on warm summer nights.  The "middle yard" as we called it, would speak of kind neighbors who more or less allowed us to share that portion of their yard as our own for kickball, tag, red rover and an ice rink for our "ice shows" in the winter time.  The big old tree out front that we loved to climb on as we waited for the school bus, but weren't technically allowed to because it was too close to the busy road.  Gosh, as I sit here and think about it, there is not a square inch of that house or yard that does not contain a memory.  Memories that wrote the story of my childhood.  The happy memories and the sad memories.  I remember sitting on the floor with my sisters near the edge of our bedroom and my mom brushing our hair after a bath as we learned of her mother's passing.  The ups and downs of life.  Memories.  Home.

I think Miranda Lambert sums up the feelings that my siblings and I have for 245 Mason in her song "The House that Built me".  None of us can hear that song, without thinking of our childhood home.  In the end, it was the unconditional love of our family that made that place so special.  The unconditional love that we all still hold for eachother and is always understood - even through the most difficult of times. 

I love the memories that my childhood home contains.  If those walls could speak.....!  In a strange way, I think they miss us just as much as we miss them. :)