I had a relationship with a house. Like so many significant others in our lives, I didn’t understand how much I appreciated it until the end.
My family and I returned to America somewhat suddenly and unexpectedly, after 17 years of living overseas, when we realized my husband was suffering from depression. Coming back to America for a time of rest and healing, we all felt a sense of trepidation. “United States” might be embossed on the outside of our passports, but our home had been overseas. We needed a place to call “home” for a year.
Hunting on the internet we found a modest house to rent. Tucked down a long driveway on a flag lot, the house itself was nothing too striking, though gratefully adequate for our family of six. The lot, however, was the selling point. Sitting privately and peacefully along a green space with a gentle creek cutting through it, it hinted at being the perfect place for a year of rest. We quickly dubbed the place “Our cabin on the creek.”
Moving in during the early weeks of spring, we lived four full seasons there on the creek. We gradually filled the house with our things. We celebrated a years-worth of birthdays and holidays. Our kids ventured into their first experience in American public schools, coming home each day to share how strange the ‘native behavior’ of middle and high schoolers seemed. (They were going through a form of culture shock.) The inevitable array of emotions were felt and expressed inside those walls.
My husband and I sat by the cozy fire in the winter months after the kids left for school to discuss our lives, sharing our reflections on this odd stage of ‘sabbatical’ in our lives and the path we must take out of the darkness and the pain. Rich conversations – sometimes full of raw emotions, sometimes daring to hope for the best of outcomes…mostly very honest and intimate.
And always this house, with its big windows looking out into the green outdoors, gave us a place to be and to behold beauty in its natural form.
So almost like clockwork, the year was up and we were making a move into a purchased house – only a mile away. Reluctantly we knew we had to give up our cabin on the creek. After days of preparing the new house, moving our furniture and boxes, the final process was left – to clean up our cabin and return the keys.
As with much of married life, my husband and I devised a sensible “division of labor” strategy. It seemed only natural that I would take on the two bathrooms and the kitchen, since I had so much experience cleaning those places. So there I was in the kitchen, scrubbing the stove top when I realized I was in the midst of a labor of love. I was relating tenderly to the stove, as if it were the wounded limb of a friend or a pet. From deep inside me I sensed the desire to “care” lovingly for this house that had given to us over the last year.
Like washing the body of a loved one who has passed away, I was preparing this house for its burial in my heart. It would no longer be a part of our lives, but it would pass into the memory of my heart. It seemed an honor to scour its sinks and mop its floors. It was the last time I would touch it.
The final good-bye was the next day, when my husband and I went back to clean up the outdoor areas of the lot. Taking a few moments for lunch we stood on the deck and looked out into the woodsy surrounding of the creek. A lone mallard duck sat peacefully on the surface of the still water. Multiple birds could be heard chirping their unique calls in among the trees. The house with its trees, creek and wildlife seemed like my friend. Saying good-bye seemed silly, yet I felt its tug deep down in my being. Gratitude and sadness swelled around me. I didn’t want this to be the end.
Thank you, house…little cabin on the creek… for being home to us. God the Father gives good gifts. And you dear house have been a very good gift.
