Lately
I find myself most in love with things that are falling down. This
little house was half a mile from our home. It sat unnoticed by me for 6
years. I am certain that I had seen it, but I was looking without
really seeing, which is an easy thing to do. Then one day as I was
driving by, a fight over the radio started to erupt from the back seats
of the minivan. I began to search my mind and reach into the deep well
of patience that is a mother’s love when I saw the little house. I
called into the back seat, “Hey babies, what if that was our home?
What can you imagine there?”
Fight
over, radio ignored and off they went. Max wanted a Goldendoodle to
explore the property with and the “most hugest” strawberry patch to tend
too. Charlotte saw chickens, a garden and her own room with a comfy
chair for reading and an easel for painting. Willa wanted cookies and a
swing. Then it was my turn.
My
first dream would be to make all of theirs come true. Then I would add
a barn/sewing studio where my friends and I could help people with their creative journeys and take care of each other along the
way. I would love a big kitchen where I could cook and the feed people that I love. I would adore a porch with a swing, where I could
sit and knit or read or just bask in the quiet of a sunset. We went on
like this for a year, tucking into that little home the only thing it
could safely house: our dreams for ourselves and each other.
We
came home from vacation to find the little house gone. It had been
burned safely to the ground, ashes and an empty space remaining. When
we saw it at first we were somber, but even my children can tell you
what the best thing about a dream is: it can’t be burned down. We don’t
need the little house there to keep going. Today as we drove by I
turned the radio low and listened to three beautiful little people
rebuild the house with their words, and when it was my turn I added some of my own.
