To the People Who bought My Grandmother's House:
Hello! Congratulations on your new home! I hope that you will love living here and make as many memories as our family has. I am very excited for you as you move in and start this new phase of your life. I'm am also very excited for my grandmother as she moves on to the next phase of her's. However, I am a little melancholy for myself. You see, that house had a huge part in my upbringing. Every room in that house has a memory that I cherish and remember fondly. Let me tell you a little bit about your new home.
I'll start with the garage. You see, the garage was my grandfather's absolute favorite room in the entire house. He had converted it into a wood working room for quite a few years. He had also built a dark room in there for my aunt when she was studying photography. After he passed away, it became my favorite room in the house. I would often go there to sit and smell the lingering smells of fresh cut wood and feel close to him. Some of his writing was still on the walls. It made me feel as though he was still there with me. It is the room that we spent most of our last weekend as a family in. We worked on closet doors for my bedroom. That is the only project that he never completed. And you know what? They're still not finished. Somehow, it just didn't seem right to finish them without him. Besides, I wouldn't know how.
Even the mud room/laundry room has a story! The laundry room door is how everyone would enter the house. I lived with my grandparents for 2 years while I attended college. I loved hearing that door open and seeing 2 of the people that I loved most in this world come walking in that door. My grandfather would whistle as he came in. It was one of my favorite sounds in the whole world.
Your living room. The one with the fireplace and the beautiful mantle (is that still there?) My grandfather made that mantle. This room is where a lot of our family functions took place. When we were growing up, we all played in this room. It is where I bonded with my cousins. It is where I would snuggle up with my grandfather. It's where we would all watch movies together. This is the room I would walk into after working at the mall, and find my grandfather sitting in his chair, waiting up for me. This is the room where we would build a fire in that fireplace and sit, watching it with mugs of hot chocolate. This is also the room where I would bring my older daughter and husband and we would take our Christmas pictures. I will miss that tradition. My younger daughter never got to partake in that, but that's ok. We'll find a new one.
Your kitchen is probably my favorite room in the entire house. This is where the grownups and later, we, would all sit for hours talking about everything and nothing at the same time. My grandmother once said that we are, "Kitchen People." We liked to sit around that table and tell stories. It is also where my grandmother made amazing Thanksgiving dinners, and other family dinners as well. It's also the first place I got experience with a dishwasher and found out what a wondrous invention that is. We also got to take turns ringing the dinner bell that my grandmother kept on the window sill. We loved getting to do that!
Your second family room used to be another part of the dining room. This is another favorite room of mine. My great-grandmother (who also used to live there, but I will get to that in a moment,) had a cuckoo clock (which is now down in my basement hanging on the wall.) I remember my brother and myself begging my grandmother and grandfather to move the hands so that it would cuckoo and sing. As the music played, we would dance around the room until it stopped, then beg for them to play it again. I think of those days every time I look at that clock.
Your dining room is a room where we gathered for family dinners, but it is also a room where we had fun. My great-grandmother, in addition to that clock, had an organ (which my brother now has in his apartment.) I had taken lessons, so I would play for her. It is also the room where we would play. One year, my grandfather made us stilts out of wood. It was in this room that we all tried to walk on them...including the adults. I have pictures somewhere.
Upstairs, in your master bedroom, is where my grandparents slept. When we would have sleep overs, sometimes, I would go in and crawl into bed with them. I always envied the walk in closet as well. Even as a child, the novelty of a walk in closet was not lost on me. I thought it was so cool that you could walk into a closet! I think I tried to convince my grandparents to let me sleep in there a few times too. I don't know that they ever gave in. I also thought that it was super cool that they had their own bathroom.
The back bedroom overlooking the back yard used to be mine. For the 2 years I lived there, that is where I slept. It's where I did my homework for my first college courses. It's where I cried when I broke up with my first real boyfriend. Later, it was converted into an exercise room for my grandmother.
The back bedroom overlooking the front is where my great-grandmother slept. This is the room that I would run up to first when we came to visit. I would spend hours in this room talking to her and listening to her stories of when she was younger and her travels. It's where I found my love of word search puzzles.
The middle bedroom is where I discovered the internet. It is also where I first my my first serious boyfriend...via the internet. I would spend hours in there, tying up the phone lines (sorry, Mom-mom!)
The basement is a whole other issue. We were older when my grandparents converted it to a play room for the younger grandkids, so we never really used it. But, I remember playing with the little guys down there sometimes. We also found some old photos in there and went through them a little. That reminds me, I still want to get some of them and scan them.
Outside of your house also has so many memories. Did you know that the trees on your property were planted for each of the grandkids? I think most of them are gone now, but there was a tree for each one of us there. One of our favorite things to do in the spring and summer was to ride the lawn mower! One day, I got the brilliant idea to drive it all the way around the house. I made it 3/4 of the way around. I thought it was a brilliant idea to ride it up the small hill next to the driveway, lost control as it turned in the air and hit my parents' car (oops!) I also took out the benches that my grandfather built around the weeping willow tree that used to stand out back.
I'm a much better driver now, thanks to the ladders that my grandfather would set up out front to teach me to parallel park. He would set them up then grab my keys and jingle them throughout the house, searching each room for me. I would hide in one room, and listen for him to search another, when he went to the next room, I would quickly (and quietly) run into the first room and hide. I still hate parallel parking and I still have nightmares about those jingling keys.
The trees in the back are where my cousins and I would spend hours climbing. Sometimes, I would just climb up and sit and watch my family from those trees, just sitting and enjoying the peace and quite that was a welcome respite from the city. I once fell out of a tree. A ball that we were playing with fell out onto a limb and I tried to get it and slipped and fell. I ripped the side of my sweat pants all the way up and gave myself a fat lip.
Back on the hill is where one of my most favorite memories happened. My grandfather planted daffodils and tulips back there. They bloomed for years after. It was always my favorite thing to go back there to see them after they came up, and before the deer came to eat them!
I know that this is a lot to read, and I may even seem like I am rambling. It's just that I can't express how much that house means to me. It was one of my favorite places to go as a child, if not my favorite place. There are a million memories in those walls, both good and bad. It's where I learned a lot about myself and my family and even some friends. It's part of where I grew up.
So, dear family, I hope that your children climb those trees (I don't hope that they get a fat lip, though.) I hope that they explore the area and that you plant flowers of your own. I hope that you have wonderful family dinners and appreciate the wondrous invention that is the dishwasher (although, you probably already do.) I hope that you enjoy the walk in closet, even if you never have a camp out in there. I hope that you make a million memories in front of the fire place with mugs of hot chocolate in your hands, and that your children hand their stockings on the mantle in preparation of Santa's visit. I hope that your children get to ring the dinner bell (or maybe not, if they do, stock up on Tylenol.) Mostly, though, I hope that you make a million wonderful memories in that house. I hope that you make it your home and that it will be somewhere that you love to come home to. I know that I always did and I will miss it.
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