The house where I grew up. One final photo.

Goodbye Stanley Drive.

My Mama died in November of 2017. She lived in the same home for nearly fifty years. We moved there when I was three. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a downstairs with a fireplace, an upstairs with windows that looked out on sky and oak trees. Over time, my parents added a horse corral in the back for my sister’s horse and a playhouse that my Dad built for me. For many years, there was a vacant lot next door where I would wander out to visit my favorite tree, one that I could climb and where I loved to sit and think. My Dad nailed little boards onto the tree, just the right size for my feet, to make it easier for me to get up into it. I did a lot of sitting and thinking in that tree when I was little.

Earlier this week, I went to that house for the last time.

It went on the market a few weeks ago. It sold within a week, for cash.

A family bought it. They have five children.

I am grateful. Grateful that a family will live there and that it is not just the latest acquisition of a foreign investment firm.

My older sister (ten years older than me) is the executor of my mom’s trust. My sister’s good husband is a contractor. After my Mama died, it took us a year to empty the house of my mother’s cherished possessions. (Every once in awhile, over the years, my mom would jokingly say, “I’m leaving all this for you to sort through!” My sister and I would laugh with her, and then look around and hope that she was kidding. Except she wasn’t.)

After the emptying, and the estate sale, and the garage sale, my brother-in-law started the remodeling. It took longer than they planned. (Don’t these things always take longer than we plan?). It turned out to be a good thing, though, since home prices in our little town skyrocketed over the last few years, especially since the Covid. Continue Reading…