Saying Goodbye to “Home”

Remember Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz clicking her ruby red slippers repeating, “There’s no place like home”? In the next few weeks I am going to be saying goodbye to my childhood home. Packing it up and clearing it out is on the agenda of my next trip to Michigan.

Although the house is staying within the family which I am really happy about it will never be my “home” again. I won’t have that house on Lincoln Road to go back to and spend time with my mom. My yearly three week Michigan vacations come to an end. My life is changing as I’ve known it for so many years. It doesn’t matter that I’ve spent more than half of my life in Jacksonville, FL where I live my life because right now in this moment I know I am losing “home”.

The saying, “Home is where your heart is” may be true. Memories are in your mind and in your heart. But having something tangible like knowing I will hear the creak of a floor if I step in a certain spot, the sound of throwing a dirty towel down the clothes chute or the click of the vents of the attic fan opening with the whoosh of outside air coming through the open windows will be gone to me.

It was a great place to grow up. My dad built it so it was solid. No half assed craftsmanship. Lots of fun family times and playing spooky house in the basement with my cousins. So many memories but now it’s time for a new family to make new memories. The house has been lonely for company with Mom in and out of the hospital and living with my sister when she’s not. The house will be happy with its new family. It will be lived in again.