Lock, Stock & Barrel

Well, the houses are sold. It went much faster than I thought. Within two days of each other I received offers on both properties. I countered. They accepted. We had the closings a week apart. The houses are gone. Weird, weird, weird feeling. The days leading up to the closings were pretty surreal. It was crunch time. Time to for real empty the houses. Nothing left behind. I rented a dumpster, enlisted my brother and nephew and had at it. While they cleared out the garage and barn, I made the last runs to Goodwill. It took two days and everyone worked their butts off and it got done. They looked bigger afterwards. I had a few moments to walk around Moms house before I locked the door for the last time. I was making sure we hadn't missed anything, but I really wanted to say goodbye to the house. I grew up there. From the time I was four years old until I got married when I was 23, with brief stints outside during college. It was strange to think I would almost certainly never set foot inside that building again. As I went from room to room, I tried to conjure up memories of things I had done or seen there. Lots of memories. By the time I reached the last room I was feeling pretty OK about leaving it behind. Maybe that's what they mean by "closure". Whatever it was, I'm glad I did it. It seemed respectful of the time invested in creating the memories. That's all our past really is; memories. If you're lucky you have pictures, but for most stuff memories are all we have and ever will have. I'm glad I can still remember.