Farewell, Old Friend

All the stickers I stuck to the back of my closet door are still there. Shiny hearts, smelly stickers, Betty Boop, Laurel Burch....

A piece of the wallpaper from my brothers' room when they were small. It was red and blue.

The massive living room mantel where stockings were hung for 32 Christmases.

The squeak in the 7th stair.

The best hiding places in the world: the linen cabinet, my parents deep walk in closet with shelves in the back, the dark corners of the basement...

The grand, wide staircase that was the central feature of the house. The banister over the stairs...that we all hung from.

The windows overlooking the park.

The upstairs bathroom my sister threw the cat out the window of.

My bedroom shelves...they were peach and held stuffed animals, games, records and finally were relegated to the attic because I was too old for shelves.

The wall we all got to write on before my dad re-papered it. I believe underneath, it still says "I love Phil" from 1986. And my friend Laura wrote "I love Nate", I think.

My sister's closed-off heat vent where she hid things, usually MY things.

The extra wide front door that gave the home a stately appearance. The awning, shutters and porch that made it feel like home.

The two massive maple trees that shaded the house for summer after summer. The "helicopters" that fell from it in the spring.

Our elementary school that we could see from the upstairs windows at the back of the house.

Our high school that sits in the park that borders the property.

The pattern in the kitchen floor; I used to have it memorized.

The basement where my baby brother used to disappear for 3 months in the summer, starting maybe when he was 8. He was/is a computer geek and he kept his computer down there. He was on the net before it was the net.

The wisteria wound around the deck roof.

The pantry that goes all the way back.

The TV room where dozens of family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends and pets flopped down on the couch.

The T-style swingset and sandbox that resided in the back yard for 25 years.

The playground in the park where we spent countless hours. The pool where we all learned to swim, and also spent thousands of hours at.

The driveway, where 4 children learned to ride bicycles, learned to drive cars, and were sent off to their senior proms from.

The basement that was big enough to roller skate in. The basement we slept in when the weather was too hot to sleep upstairs.

The hiding place between our garage and the garage of the house behind us, where my friends and I used to have our "club".

The stereo cabinet where we played John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album until it wore out.

The kitchen where thousands of cut-out cookies were made, where parties were held, where crafts were done.

The tiny bathroom off the kitchen where my sister would go to talk on the phone, stretching the phone cord all the way across the kitchen...this was before cordless phones.

The way the glass in the downstairs windows is a little wavy...it's been there since 1926.

The box-beam ceiling in the kitchen.

The wind chimes on the front porch that heralded spring, summer and autumn for all those years.

Farewell, this place of love and laughter, the place I have called home as long as I can remember. The neighborhood which is no longer my neighborhood. I guess everything changes, eventually.

You might tell me that it's just a house. And I used to say the same, never thinking this day would come where it would sit, abandoned and forlorn, separated from it's family of so many years, decades.

Growing up, my friends used to tell me I lived in a mansion. Not so, I would tell them, it's *just* a house.

Now that it sits empty and vacant, save for a lifetime of memories.

A mansion it is.