What once was

  At first I was fascinated by the wreckage...I'd never actually seen anything like it before, and I just wanted to take pictures of everything...typical me.   But the more times I went in, the more unnerving it became. The more it sunk in that this is it, the house is really gone.   By the final time I went inside, I just wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible, because it just felt so ominous inside.

  Before I left though, I had to take a few moments to look around and just take it all in one more time.  I stood in the kitchen and saw it as it was before, with my family there. My grandmother at the stove, my grandpa at the kitchen table.  Myself as a child, using a stepladder as a chair and eating my dinner off of the pull-out cutting board because there wasn't room at the table.  

  And even the big yard outside, which still looks the same,  but I knew I wouldn't likely get to visit again. I could see my brothers and I as children playing with our cousins,  games like "Beat each other up" and "Man Hunt."     



  And of course, I will always remember my grandparents waving goodbye from the porch door or the big picture window, as they did every time we'd leave after a visit.

  I had to take it all in one more time, and say goodbye. Its so sad to think that I won't ever get to visit the house again.  Part of me kind of felt like it would always be there for me.   And if its hard for me, I can only imagine how difficult it is for my mom and my grandpa, who spent so much of their lives there.





  You never think that this sort of thing could happen to you, or to your family, but it can. It does.

 And because I don't want to leave this on such a sad note, I thought I would close with a couple photos of some happier times at the house.  :)






     I will miss this old house, but it will stand untouched in my memories and dreams.