The meaning of a childhood home

We all want to hurry up to grow up. But... when the day comes to say goodbye to the home you grew up in, you wish you could wind back the clock for just a day.

March 18, 2019

The truck showed up around 8am... at that point, we'd hit the "go button" and the rest of the day went by in a blink. It wasn't till the basement was empty and cleaned and all the bedrooms were empty that we noticed it REALLY wasn't "home" anymore. That's when all the memories flooded back. Planting the trees in the yard from seeds. The white walls everywhere. Painting my room with my mom for the first time. (It was wheelbarrows and bumblebees with flowers. Elaborate I know... ) Riding my bike to elementary school. So many great memories.

If you don't want to read short stories you can stop reading now.

Memory #1

We had gotten a bunch of snow followed by rain. Anyone familiar with winter weather in the midwest would know this makes for PERFECT snow fort conditions. We cut out pieces of snow from the entire yard to build this... I kid you not... palace. It was huge and the neighbors complained but hey... we're still talking about it.

Memory #2

Night games. Growing up, there were over 30 kids on our block alone. There was always this mad dash to eat dinner and get back outside to play. Ghosts in the Graveyard was our neighborhood favorite.

Memory #3

We had hills on either side of the house with a creek in the backyard. You know those toboggan sleds from FleetFarm? Yeah, they're awesome. We would all pile on my dad (we needed his weight for momentum... jk) and try to make it down onto the creek. MOST of the time we did and it was exciting every time.

Memory #4

Speaking of the creek. We shoveled it to skate and play hockey with half the neighborhood every winter mother nature allowed us to. It started with piles in the middle and quickly morphed to a snowblower/skate/shovel combination working like a well oiled machine. Within the memory of skating on the creek, there were multiple "eve's" of holidays we ended up in the ER with injuries due to the creek. Ah, good times.

Memory #5

The memories and good times out weigh the bad by miles. The most important memory of our home isn't the structure itself... it's the memories we made together during the time we lived there. 7838 Parrish Avenue will always hold a special place in our hearts.

PS... I'm not crying... you're crying.