We finally met the neighbors tonight that had moved into my childhood home, right next door to where we now live.
I’ve seen them several times, but have always just missed being able to speak to them,
and I’ve peered through their windows often while out on walks, wondering about the inside and what they did.
I remember the day I saw the moving trucks there as they were just moving in.
There was a strange pit in my stomach as I watched them carry in stuff;
Like it still belonged to me somehow, and they were in the process of stealing it.
That tiny house, it is nothing much.
You basically spin in a circle and that’s all there is.
I remember the first time we saw it after moving to California from Georgia, where we had lived in a house with pillars on the porch.
I remember knowing that my mom had locked herself in the bathroom to cry.
Over the years, though, that house became everything.
Though it is tiny, it sits on a large piece of land where the grass is tall enough to hide away.
Where I once created, and dug, and made plans.
That house meant a lot of outdoor time for me:
A prize for a nature loving kid.
There my imagination was beckoned to be free.
That house whispered “Become” to me, and I did.
When I told them their house is where I had grown up,
the wife asked if I would like to come in and see it.
I tried to conceal how much my heart jumped when next she led us through the old back gate, and up the still wobbly deck steps.
It was the first time I’ve stood in that yard in nearly 25 years, and it was like I could see the ghosts of our dog,
and where the bunny lived.
The ocean fish catch hanging for a proud photo along the deck rail.
For a moment it was like I had never left.
Standing in the living room, it all felt so much smaller than I remembered,
but somehow, exactly the same.
Haircuts there that I would despise set to the background of my mom’s meatloaf smell.
The tank that held the catfish, Smoky, that we had caught and never could bear to kill…
It felt like she had given me the gift of remembering.
My ultimate dream would have been to be left alone in there for a bit,
just letting everything come back in for awhile.
Taking time to sit with it.
To once again hold the thing that I’d lost –
The feeling of coming back home.
As Justin and I got ready to leave, I told her thank you so much for the experience, and she said,
“You’re the one with the kids, aren’t you? And the trampoline?”
I was scared for a minute, envisioning her constantly hearing the girls scream and fuss;
Wondering what they did.
But that is when she told me that listening to them jumping during quarantine had been one of the main things that had lifted her spirit;
That on the nights when she had felt most lonely, she would go outside and sit in my old back yard and listen – just to hear their voices through the trees.
She said she had needed it to make it through,
and that she had grown to count on it, and all the ways it would make her feel.
At that very moment, right as dusk settled in, a fox ran down the road right by where we stood.
I’ve never seen it before.
It felt like a dream.
It stopped, mere yards away.
It turned to look at us for what felt like a long time, but maybe that’s just what my heart said.
A “connected” moment.
Time, and home, and everything that had ever happened to us all reaching out to take hands.
We bid our goodbyes, and our “Nice to meet you”s, and Justin and I walked back next door to the girls.
The fox disappeared into the underbrush,
and I pondered how amazing this life is that would let a daughter who loved her home come back and live next door, to pass her own wild, free childhood onto her kids.
Same roads,
same trees,
same place to come back to one day.
She had given to me, and I found out we had given to her.
We had each needed to borrow something from the other,
as neighbors often do;
And now I know I can go there if I need some flour or butter.
I hope she knows I will welcome her in, too.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
