A Chapter Closed

The closing for the sale of my childhood home since 1977 was slated for 3:00 today. Over the last 34 years. I have moved in and out of that house 5 times. I initially moved in back in 1977 in the summer of my 7th grade year. The house was big enough that my whole family lived there. My Mom and Dad, my sister and my maternal grandparents all in the same house. At that time Gayton Forest seemed like "the country." Truthfully, there wasn't much past that neighborhood but woods. If you know the Short Pump area at all now, that seems inconceivable. I spent my high school days in that house. So many firsts, first date, first dance, first high school party, and my first kiss in the front foyer. I got engaged in that house, lost my first baby to miscarriage and was elated when I found out that I was pregnant again, all in that house. It was a shelter in the time of storm when at 34 I found myself with no money, no job and no car after my husband of 15 years left and I had two tiny girls to raise alone. My parents opened up the basement apartment so that we were not left on the street. My girls spent most of their childhood there and they were incredibly fortunate to be able to spend so much time with both of their grandparents and their great grandmother all in that house. Birthdays, and Christmases, and Thanksgivings and Halloweens have been spent inside those walls. Today that chapter closes in my life and the house's life. Tomorrow a new family will start a new chapter in "my" house. I wish for them all the things that made that house a home to me.