Tiny pink heart stickers cover the ceiling fan, so faint I almost missed them. My mind goes wondering as I tell my daughter “a little girl grew up in this room.” As I sit on the edge of my little one’s bed and wish her sweet dreams, the hearts on a ceiling fan spin around and around.
I can almost hear the footsteps on the stairs, the chaos of children like a song that has now become faint. I wonder what the family looked like walking up the brick sidewalk after church. Did their little girl slip when it was raining like mine did? Did they watch the deer through the windows excitedly or play hide and seek among the trees? An old playset still sits in the backyard, but it’s clearly been many years since a child played on it. One afternoon I saw one of my elderly neighbors raking leaves in his yard. He said to me, “We used to have so many events when the kids were little. Now they’ve all grown up and left. The neighborhood is recycling itself. It’s okay, that’s life.”
A thousand memories float across my skin. They dance around the room from someone who is no longer here in this place. Memories upon memories, where one family ends and another begins.
“Where thou art — that — is home.” ~Emily Dickinson
There is Enough
Our homes are havens of love and special moments. Anxiously watching for the result of a pregnancy test soon becomes the sweetest little feet with first steps, first giggles, first words. Before we know it, years pass by and so much has happened in our homes we can’t even tell all the stories.
Our homes are our place of rest. They are our place to snuggle under the covers when the rest of the world has gone crazy. Our place to cry when life just becomes too heavy. And that’s why it’s so hard to leave and step into new walls, carpet, and tile. The feeling isn’t the same. I don’t see the smudges and handprints yet on the doors. There aren’t old crayon marks from my girls and there have been no glitter explosions so far. I miss my old house. I miss that feeling, where there is a memory at every corner to greet me.
Little Pink Hearts on a Ceiling Fan
But, the little pink hearts on a ceiling fan remind me that we didn’t walk into a blank canvas, and even if we did there is enough laughter, enough love, and enough warmth between us to fill any place.
“No matter who you are or where you are, instinct tells you to go home.” ~Laura Marney
I love this. I love you! May your new home soon have all the comfort that you found in the one you left. To live life is to move forward.
I love you too!