The Familiar and the Reinvented

{If you haven't read the first few sections of the story...scroll down.}

When I saw Grandma and Grandpa's address on the computer screen, I forwarded the email to my entire family with the added note: Anyone want to buy me a house for graduation?

I was kidding. In a not kidding sort of way.


I sat back and waited for the "Ha ha! Good one!" replies, and instead messages such as "Call her and tell her not to sell it until we talk to her..." came to me.

Seriously??

So I emailed this mostly unknown-to-me person with an awkward, "Hey, you don't know me, but you bought my grandparents' house, and I get the feeling the family misses it and wants it back" reply.

Just a couple of nights later, I climbed in a car with the friend who planned to room with me after college and we pulled up in front of that house of memories again.

It looked different. The gargantuan bushes that hid the front porch were gone. The old screen door with the giant "K" in the middle had been replaced by an updated storm door. It looked different and yet looked like home.

She welcomed us inside and gave us an invitation to walk through the house at our leisure.

Everything was just like I remembered...with a hint of beautiful updates. Things Grandma and Grandpa would have loved.

Bedroom carpet pulled up and Grandpa's hardwood floors refinished.  Beautiful new paint colors throughout the house. A chandelier in the dining room. And textured wallpaper on the ceiling that made it look like a tin ceiling. Amazing.

It was fresh and beautiful...and yet still had the reminder of the home I'd always known. It even smelled the way I remembered...just like coffee.

We walked through the house and I knew it could be our home. My future roommate loved it too, and just a few days later, I was back in the living room, inhaling the coffee smell while my mom and sister walked through the house, looking at the new as it mingled with the familiar.

And before we left that day...the house was ours.

My sister bought it and my roommate and I signed contracts to rent it from her.

Y'all, it was beyond all I could have ever imagined. My roommate and I had been hoping for a decent apartment. We never dreamed God would pave the way for a whole HOUSE. A whole house that even though rented...could in many ways be ours. Abundantly above and beyond.

July 3, 2000...after a week of sickness that included a trip to the ER...we moved in. Trucks and cars filled with boxes lined the block and our friends and family moved us in.

A new start on a familiar foundation. A new generation of memories.

{PS - remember I'd been VERY SICK. I think the photos reflect that. Well. And it was just a bad phase in general.}

My bedroom was the same one I'd always slept in when I spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa...and then it was mine. Mine for real. No suitcases. no packing up in the morning.

Mine.

It was strange...to be in their house and not call it theirs. In fact, for a long time, I did call it theirs. I was living in their house.

When the first Thanksgiving rolled around, I hosted the traditional dinner and even served mac n cheese in Grandma's glass dish that I'd inherited. I tried to make it a holiday she'd be proud of. I tried to do it as she would have done.

It was a lesson I needed to learn...to not recreate the past...but to create a present and a future.

For the next four years, I lived in those walls, with two different roommates, and I tried to keep the past alive. I tried to do everything as Grandma and Grandpa would have done. I insisted things stay the same. I wanted to preserve a past rather than perfect a present.

And then came the summer when it all changed.