To Close the Chapter

A year is a big cup of time, from first sip in January to the last drops of December. There could be many various flavors within, from sweet to bitter and flat and spicy, and others indescribable.

 

For us, 2011 had moments with us clawing at our throats with the acrid taste of grief and sadness, as well as times of licking our lips to savour the fading beauty of something ending.  It was a dark beginning this time last year, and we seemed to be alone in a storm without direction or shelter. 
This year, only two weeks old, has started off with what the previous one had lacked:  hope.

After coming dangerously close to foreclosure this spring, we got an offer on our house this summer.  The buyer, we were told, was a young single guy, a vet, and had a wad of cash in his pocket.  We of course were jubilant that there was one final ditch effort to short sale our home, all the while we waited for the other shoe to drop.  The bank finally reviewed his offer, which was 8K more than the box was worth, and recounted with a demand to increase it by 15K.  We expected the guy to walk, but (because he really loved our house) accepted and raised his offer to this outrageous price.  The appraisal went in even 5K more than what the bank was offering, and so the buyer (elated that he was getting it below market value) signed to owner.

We picked Aaron up early to make our appointment at Stewart Title, but traffic today was amazingly slow and congested.  Abnormally so.  We were late ten minutes, but greeted by a very nice underwriter who guided us through the volume of documents we had to sign or initial.  Towards the end, she smiled expectantly and with long manicured fingernails tapped an amount in one of the boxes.  It was a lot of money for us, perhaps not for others, but too us it was impressive, and intimidating.  We cocked our brows while the thought crossed both our minds that perhaps this was some unwarned closing cost we had to come up with on the sudden. 
"You received the incentive from your bank," she said.  I studied her face, translating the words in my head from what I had expected (this is the amount you're responsible for) to what she was actually saying (this is what you get).  A wildly unexpected blessing on top of a miracle.
After fourteen months of facing the unknown, confusion about whether we were doing the right thing or not, grief and sadness and a profound sense of failure and dissapointment, we finally closed the sale. 

Words can't express the relief we feel.  That great money-pit of a house is finally off our backs, and now it seems in the capable hands of another. 

The house was such a symbol to us of who we were over the 8 years we lived there.  It was where we felt the euphoria of being homeowners for the first time.  Where we experienced the deepest grief in loss of loved ones.  Where we, with the help from family who loved us, created careful cozy nests for our precious new baby boys, and made it our babies' home, too.  Where the Pumpkin Carving parties, Christmas Eve dinners, birthday parties, and music, always music, are all somehow absorbed in the carpet, in the leaves of grass in the back yard, in the raspberries, or in every room in that house, every pore of the cement on the patio.  There remains the invisible essence of the love we enjoyed during our time there. 

After we moved out in July and visited to clean and the boys were in the back yard playing and eating raspberries, I walked through the rooms one by one, remembering the corner in the nursery where I rocked AJ as he suckled, a tiny baby and I a new, tired mom.  Or the kitchen were we relished great company with family and friends, good food, and orbs of red wine. This is where AJ sang his Superman theme song.  This is where he first walked.  This is where R slept, in this room beside us in bed.  This is where Aaron and I crumbled on the floor and cried in each others arms after an especially painful event.  This is where Andres stood at my side in the kitchen as we made cookies, or pizza.  This is the mantel we made over the fireplace, where Aaron lit candles every night to recline with his glass of Merlot on the floor. 
Eight years is a long time.  It's the longest we have ever lived in one place.  And though we sigh and walk away from that house, we take it with us, because it's of us now, a chapter in our story.

Our first garden in 2004.

Our monthly photos during our pregnancy with AJ started with this one at 6 weeks along, standing between our beloved Japanese maple and white rhododendron trees.

The nursery was the sweetest room in the house by the time AJ was born.

When he was born, he loved his Papa.  And swings...

...and pools in the grass...

...and the playhouse by the cemilia tree...

...and the parties!  The parties we had!

Where he met his brother, baby R.

...and our nest adjusted to another little body.

The house taught us that we loath remodeling projects.

Aaron worked hard in the yard to make it as beautiful as it was when we left, and he was so proud of this path he created from river rocks we smuggled from the mountain creeks on our summer hikes.

I'll miss this special hydrangea bush in the back.  I believe angels dwell there.