December 2021

I have been in Canada for months, packing up our home on the land we lived on and raised our children for 30 years. Feelings are strong as each member of our family remembers past days of their childhood when they rocketed around our land in the foothills of Alberta. As for my husband and I, there were a lot of childhoods to remember. And it is just these memories, not the stuff that surrounds me now as I pack up, that are so poignant. 

I sift through my memories and sift through some very strange treasures I’ve packed away for years. I’m wondering what I was thinking when I bought that statue of a cow wearing a chicken suit that I saw in a window in Mexico some years ago. Or the Tilley hat that I never wore but thought would be a handy addition to my wardrobe in case I ever wobbled through the deserts of Arabia on a camel. Or the large collection of assorted pears of unusual size.

If my treasures are unusual, so are my memories of this house. There’s the dent that never got fixed when two of our sons raced through the house and slid headfirst into the wall yelling “I won!”. The chin-up bar and punching bag that came in handy when tempers flared. The chocolate eggs that were found in strange hiding places months after the bunny had long left the house. The pumpkin pies that dad made every member of the family for Thanksgiving dinner. The Christmas trees that never stayed straight even when we nailed them to the wall or we attached them to the vent in the ceiling. Hide and seek in our darkened house that involved a wet puppet and a lot of hysterical screaming and laughter. It’s the laughter that filled this old house that will stay with me long after we close the doors forever. 

So now our children have children and create their own memories. They will drag in the Christmas tree and wrestle to get it to stand straight and maybe remember when their mom and dad made them hold it up for an hour while they tied it to the ceiling. 

Every season has its memories and they are housed in houses like the one I am just packing up as I write this. They are housed in our hearts and we will never close the doors on them. May you choose to celebrate the good memories that pack your days as we close in on a very memorable year.

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