I've Loved Them All.......

When I think back over my life, and remember all the houses - both of my youth and then of my later life - I have come to realize that I've loved them all.

No, I haven't been "in love" with all of them .......but I've loved them.
Some were more special to me than others. Just like porches - houses are important to me. The memories that are attached to these houses are a part of life and a part of the people that have been a part of my life.

The little green five room house on Red Gum Plantation, just outside the little town of Louise, MS, was an important part of the life of both my little brother and me.  Louise was where he started school, and I finished school. The house no longer stands, but the beautiful memories remain. The screened porch, with the swing, where I spent many hours reading - sat in the middle of a cotton field. We were poor......but my brother and I never knew that because our parents provided whatever we needed.

I still remember, fondly, the first house my honey and I owned in Greenville, MS. It was the house where we lived when our first child was born, and it was the house where she learned to walk.

There was the old two-story house in which we lived, in Iowa, where our youngest daughter was born. And where I fell down a flight of stairs, while holding her.....but she never touched the floor! (And I had a C/S when she was born....Ouch!) And then, there was the house near Winterset, Iowa ('Bridges of Madison County') that my honey remodeled - and it was our last Iowa house.

There was the house, in Arlington, TX on Juniper Lane in which we lived when our youngest daughter finished high school and where we lived when our first grandchild was born.

There was the house in Georgia and there was the house in Florida.....so many houses.....so many memories.

Through the years (and as I write that phrase....the song comes to mind), there has been one important house in my life. The little house (the walls were like those of a balloon - they expanded as the house filled, with people) on Fellowship Road .......just outside Taylorsville, MS.

It was the house that was built in 1932. It's the house in which my grandparents first lived and then the house in which my parents lived. It sits just across the driveway from my house.......the second most important house, in my life.

Over this weekend, we've spent hours cleaning out the old house......it has been used as storage, for years. Hard working men have stripped the old house of anything that might be "usable."  I've found things that were "missing"......and I've found things that I didn't even remember!

Tomorrow, this piece of my history.....and a piece of the history of Fellowship Road will be buried.

I have sat, on my front porch, and imagined Granny rushing out the door.....wiping her hands on her apron. I've imagined Mama.....standing, with tears in her eyes, as we drove away. I've imagined Thanksgivings and Christmases and Easter.....and I've tried to store, in the Memory Book in my Mind.....a permanent picture of that old house........that I can recall .......after tomorrow.

Yes, I've loved them all....but I've probably loved this one the longest because it's always been a part of my life.

Yes, I'm sentimental.....but tomorrow, I'll be strong!!