Today is a bittersweet day for me. I’m packing up my house. Some tears escaped as I sorted through the cupboard with the birthday candles and cupcake holders – all of the sprinkles and various cookie cutouts.
The assorted collection you accumulate through 10 years of memories that we’ve built in this house.
Birthday parties, holiday celebrations. We’ve watched our 3 little children learn to walk, learn to talk, lose their first tooth, host their first sleepovers, take their very first “First Day of School!” picture.
We’ve planted flowers and plants, spent hours playing in the yard, swimming in the pool, laughing.
We’ve had hard times too. Losing our daughter, suffering through the long NICU days, our separation and almost divorce… caring for my father.
We’ve laughed. We’ve hosted get togethers with friends and loved ones.
Now we’re leaving that all behind.
We’re moving to a new house. A house in which I was not pregnant with my children. A house in which we did not cry the tears when we learned our daughter, maybe both girls, would die. A house where we welcomed our family as they came to be part of the service after Kathryn died.
[bctt tweet=”They say home is where the heart is… but I’ll be leaving a piece of my heart in the home that will soon belong to someone else.” username=”losethecape”]
A house where my father enjoyed many fun meals and get togethers with my family.
Now he is gone too.
My new house carries no memories of my daughter or my father.
And this realization broke me down into gut wrenching sobs. I find myself grieving again. For both of them.
While I am excited about the new memories to be made, the new adventures that will come our way, this is the house we made so many of our important milestones with our children. Soon we will paint over our growth chart – watching our littles grow into not-so-littles.
And I’ll have to pack up all of the cards I still have placed on the hearth from when my dad passed away a few months ago.
We’ll have a new hearth… that will look different.
Everything will be different.
I won’t have the memories of my dad, or my daughter in this house. And that breaks my heart and makes me feel like I’m leaving them behind.
But I know their memories will go with me.
We’ll plant new flowers, host new parties, celebrate more family birthdays.
We’ll laugh, we’ll cry. We’ll yell, we’ll hug… we’ll live.
But we won’t forget.