T Minus 509 Days: Never return home?

We didn't do any purging today. Instead, we watched various YouTube videos to get ideas about moving. We watched videos for packing, arranging moving companies, and checklists with all the things that have to be done as part of a move.

One video said something that hit me like a ton a bricks. The host said "On the last day, do a walk through to make sure you haven't forgotten anything because tomorrow you won't be able to return to the house."

Won't be able to return to my house?

I built this house. It started as a field. I worked with an architect to design it. A builder to construct it. I did work during and after the construction. Every corner of this house is there because I decided to put it there. The lights, fixtures, and locations of electrical outlets were all my decision. I finished most of the basement all by myself - adding walls, ceilings, and floors.

This house was built after many years of apartment living to save money. We pinched pennies and dreamed about a day when we would have a back yard for the kids to play in, and room enough for the kids to have friends over. When we finally signed the papers for the house? We all did a happy dance, a dance we had been planning to do for years.

I built this house 17 years ago to raise our children. I remember my kids driving their riding cars around the kitchen and banging into the walls. Children running down the halls screaming in joy. The noise that was so loud sometimes, but I told myself to enjoy it because someday I would miss it all. I remember the long conversations with my daughter in her bedroom. Playing video games with my sons in the living room. All of the holidays and decorating the house in ways that became tradition. My wife baking cookies in the kitchen. All of the incredible cakes my daughter made. My son coming home from school and telling me about his day. The birthday celebrations. The kids tumbling down stairs in excitement for Christmas. All the laughs and tears. All the great times and all the struggles. All the dreams that were made and broken. Life played out in this house.

How can I stand in this empty house in 509 days and look at everything one last time and not be devastated. I imagine I'll be haunted by the sounds of children laughing and playing that are no longer there. I can look at every mark on the wall, and every chip of missing wood, and I remember how and when it happened.  It will be one of the saddest days of my life.

I have moved five other times in my life. But never have  I lived in one place for so long. Never have I had the kinds of life connections and experiences like I have had in this house. After that last day, this will no longer be my house where my memories are made. It will be someone else's. There will be no more opportunities to do all the things with the house I've wanted to do. There will be no more Christmas pictures of the kids standing on the stairs. No more memories will be created here. Those last few days are going to be very emotional.