Goodbye, Old House

Last week I received a phone call from my mom telling me that they had interested parties wanting to buy their house. For those of you that need a recap, my parents live in a small town in IL. Although my sister and I are native Hoosiers, we were raised in IL but we both returned to Indiana upon graduation. Once I finally decided to make Bloomington my permanent home last year, my parents began looking for a home in between Bloomington and Indy where my sister and her family live. They bought a house last year in Martinsville and have been renting it to a family. They didn't anticipate selling their current home until Dad retires in 2009-2010. About a month ago a young man stopped by the house to tell them that he really liked their house and if they ever wanted to sell it to call him first. Well, they thought on that and thought that was a good idea. Before long they had 2 interested buyers (without ever listing the house as For Sale--how good is God's timing?). Last Wednesday they called to say the house was sold so I decided to make one last trip home. I have never lived in this house, but it is a beautiful house and in a beautiful area and I do have some very special memories of the house and of our family in the house. On Friday mom called to say she was making all (that would be Sarah and me) of our favorite foods for our last meal in the house. We really had a great time. The house looks great and we spent Friday night racing little remote controlled speed boats on the pond one last time. On Saturday they went to the bank to finalize things and the closing is set for 2 weeks! That's right, by July 31st the house will no longer be theirs. On Saturday my parents loaded my car with more stuff than imaginable: my old 10 speed bike, old books from nursing school, art, paper products (dad stockpiles TP, Kleenex, and paper towels), lawn care items, 2 trunks of my old dolls, my little rocking chair from my childhood (it needs some major rehab), my tutu and ballet shoes that I am going to have cleaned and put in my daughter's room. I know that I no longer have any reason to return to IL. In anthropology (my college major) we track populations by DNA. You can see where groups of people have lived by looking at the DNA through their descendants. Although they have lived there for 26 years there is nothing left of any of us in that town. Aside from my graduation photo hanging from the walls of the high school there is no evidence that I ever lived there. I'm not really sad though because soon my family will be together once again!














My niece, Saige. Isn't she precious?