Can't Burn a Memory

My new house now sits right on top of were my first house was. When we decided to buy a house, my Hubby went and looked at only one while I was at work and came home to the travel trailer we were then living in and announced he found the perfect home for us.

When he brought me to my "Green Acre's" type dwelling I cried. He had to be joking. Tiny, cramped house, older than me, held together by staples and shelving paper. Acreage full of generations of garbage. The place was an eyesore. Honey was delighted with the future prospects of the place that I could not yet envision. Being in construction he had big reconstructive plans for the place. I prayed we would never have house guests to see the shabby conditions we lived in.

We spent our fist years together working on our home at every opportunity. Week ends we cleaned the yard and pasture. Hauling away refuse and burning dilapidated old out buildings and trash. Scary vermin who were long term residence were soon made homeless. We filled dumpster and hired a company to rid of us of the hundreds of tires that filled our land. We used spare building material from hubbies construction jobs to revamp the house.

We never did make it to the point of a major house addition that we had always planned and so badly needed. Years past, life got in the way. Kids happened. Funky Scottish highlander livestock filled our pasture. Dogs and cats replaced the vermin. Hubbies job took him out of state more than in. I worked as an antique dealer, dragging my young babies to auctions and to the shop with me, filling our abode with far more treasures than I ever sold. Our little home now had charature and charm. Far from perfect but I loved it.

Hubby was working on a job in the southern part of our state, three years ago. "Let's surprise your dad and go visit him!", I told the boys one Saturday when I came home from work at the antique shop when Hubby was unable to come home for the weekend. "Yeah!!!!", the kids exclaimed happily at the thought of spending the night at their fathers apartment three hours away. We didn't bother packing a change of clothes, I had planned on coming back early the next day to change before going in to the churches nursery where I was skedualed to help. We jumped into my jeep without a backwards glance in the rearview mirror. I never did see my first home again.

The fire chief dug threw our trash at the end of our driveway for a name. The fire that had started during the night quickly demolished our little cedar thatched home.Thinking we were burned in the house, because of the spare jeep in our driveway, he called my hubbies brother who shares our last name. John was unable to tell them for certain were we were. It was the police who woke us up in the apartment the next morning, happy to be able to tell us the bad news. Happy that they could tell us, and not have to tell John that they didn't know our wereabouts either.

It was during the long drive back to what used to be my home that the horrible realization of the amount of our loss started sinking in. Gone was everything I ever owned. My collections, my childhood relics, my Moms keepsakes I had recently inherited from her passing. My wedding ring. Tears started pouring down my face when the little voice came from my back seat. "Mom what are you crying about?", K1, then in kindergarten asked. "All your baby pictures are gone", I sobbed thinking of the snapshots of my little premie son dressed in doll clothes. They were the constant reminder I hung in my kitchen to remind me how fragile and precious life is least I forget when life itself testes me. "That's ok Mom, you still have the memory's."

The rest of that ride home I spent planning the new toys I would buy him for that.

I lost everything in that fire but nothing that wasn't replaceable. I walked into my new closet for my warm winter socks that Hubbies mum had knitted now that the chill has returned to the air. I forget that they are now just ash. That's ok, they itched anyway.