The Greatest Thing I've Ever Been

If walls could talk, they might tell you that your shoe is untied just before you trip. They also might just wait and laugh when you fall on your face. It's funny. The way you splay out after waving your arms around trying to catch yourself...but I digress. I don't speak for them. I am a house.

I am older than I look. I have seen the turn of many centuries, and have been many things. I was a church once, when I was only one big room. People would gather within my walls and talk of friendship. The woman they all listened to said it is wrong to kill or own other people. She was very kind. She was not very old when she died. Something they call smallpox. Everyone was very sad. They burned her house. I heard them whisper about it.

After that, they made me bigger. They gave me rooms and kept kids here. They called me a school, but I think that was the wrong word. There were beautiful children, but they were very mean to them. They made them speak a different language, they cut off their hair. The children cried a lot. They missed their parents. They whispered prayers. I missed the nice friend lady.

I was a real school once. A school for girls. They all dressed up in clothes that matched and learned how to be good wives. I did not know what a wife was then, but now that I do, I think they should have taught the girls to be everything else. The lady that owned me was very strict. She hit the girls when they did not succeed. I don't think that hitting helps children. They cried for their parents too.

I was fortunate enough after that to become something they call a maternity hospital. Women would come live with me, and they would have their babies. I saw them all come into the world, and many leave it too. That was always sad. The sweet little cries, and whimpers were to most beautiful sound to me. This went on for many years, and then medicine changed.

Women did not go to maternity hospitals anymore. They went to maternity wards in regular hospitals. I don't know what those look like, but I hope they all get to take their babies home happy and healthy. The world changed around me, and I was empty for a long time. My walls ached and cracked. Parts of me crumbled, and I thought I would not be around much longer.

I do not really know how many years I sat empty. I was sad, and felt so alone. My walls and halls had fallen silent. That all changed when a man came in and started taking pictures. He said I was magnificent. I should be rennovated. I could be a house. I saw houses all around me, with people living in them. I really liked that idea. I wish that I could tell him now how much I appreciate him.

It took a year and a half, and many different men came in and changed my floors, walls, and roof. The rooms were different than they have ever been. My outbuildings had crumbled, so they were taken away, and something called a garage was added to the space behind me. My root cellar was expanded and finished, and it became a proper room. I wondered what life would be like.

When they were all done with the building and changing, the man came back, and he had his wife and a baby with him. This was the most exciting moment in my entire existence! The baby was a little girl, so tiny and fragile. I watched as she learned to crawl, to walk, to talk. I watched and smiled inside as she learned things that made her happy, and things that made her sad.

Her parents said she was different. They worried. She would sometimes lash out at others or herself when she was overwhelmed. She flapped out her arms when she got excited, or bored, or annoyed. They were told they should send her away, and they refused. I watch as her parents learned how to help her navigate her feelings, and the world around her. I watched as she obsessively read everything she could find about flowers. I watched as her parents helped her start a garden.

As she grew, I listened to her sing and listen to the same songs over and over, and it was beautiful every time. I watched as her plants won awards. I watched as she studied for her high school finals. I watched her cry as the pressure to go away to college was overwhelming. I listened to her parents as they counseled her about her choices.

She never went away to college. She lived at home and went to a school nearby and got a master gardener certification. If you are in the same area, you will see her gardens everywhere. They are all beautiful, and they are designed to provide food for all. She got married, and divorced. She has kids of her own, almost grown themselves.

At night, she sits by the fire and reads. She hums to herself, and walks on her tiptoes. It turns out, she has something called autism. She found out as an adult. Two of her kids have it as well. When she was small, there was not much understanding, but she says that now it is easier. The greatest thing I have ever been, is her house. The love inside my walls is so powerful that I feel like we radiate with it.

I hope that there are more houses like me. Houses that have been saved from disrepair and the crumbling powers of time and abandonment to become happy homes full of love, kindness, and joy. I hope that some day all of the people on the planet get to have a home like me, and everyone is safe and warm and happy.