Pieces of Home

Driving up to the old farmhouse that we grew up in as children, was always the routine on special occasions or to celebrate a loved one's birthday that has passed on.

Pulling up to the old house, old boards hanging, old bricks laying around, and the birds had taken over and made a nest on the old porch when our dog used to layout on.

The stairs are very old, nails peeking out, the creaking noise they make now, the boards wilted and withered from the snow and rain and sun, mother nature took control and just kept laying it on.

Up to the front door, the hinges missing and windows are broken, the doorknob missing and big holes through the middle were what we had seen, it all changed so quickly as the weather and years go on.

Into the kitchen where grandma would do all her baking, the sweet smell of her pies, and cookies, and cinnamon buns filled our imaginations and all the memories of her baking brought smiles to our faces as we kept walking on.

Into the hallway now, dark and scary. The spider webs twisted and long, beautiful in a creepy way, hung and dangled like little master pieces from little creatures in little rows as we went on.

Further, we went, into each room, shone our flashlights around the rooms, and laughed about the times we played and messed around. Great thoughts and bad thoughts in most of them, but our parent's room was next to peek in on.

The walls of their room were stained with old picture marks where they once hung, and the floor scratched up from grandmas old dresser that once took up that space over there by her closet door, that dresser top was where she had all our family pictures on.

Then as we walked out of grandma's room, there were the stairs going up to the third floor, creepy and old, those stairs didn't look safe, the stairway was missing a few boards so we just slowly kept moving on.

The next big room was the living room area, this huge room had most of the windows in, during the days grandma had pulled the curtains and let the sunlight shine in, the sun hitting every direction, showing the uneven paint job that was still on the wall in a few places, so we moved on.

It peeled and faded in most places, but there was still a lot of paint left on the walls, it was that horrible orange color and then they painted gray, never painted after that, just added the same sad colors on and on.

Walking through the old farmhouse always brought such joy and tears, all the childhood memories and the silly things us kids would do, getting into trouble and hiding or playing in the porch closet without the light on.

Hard work went into our home as we grew up, had more chores and responsibilities to learn the ways of doing things right for when it would be our time to move things along and on on.

What we became from being taught the old ways and to get things done even if we struggled and fought, no matter how tough and how difficult it looked, we had to trust ourselves and move on.

As we walked outside and turned one last time to look at what our family had built, and the love that went into each layer of that house, it comforted me and my sister, it was our family, it was our house, that's all our memories held inside, secrets it holds, as it lives in hearts through time as life goes on.