News: Part 2 (the bad news)

Ok, friends, here's the bad news. My childhood home burned to the ground.

I think my Gran read it in the newspaper. Then my Mom drove by the house (or what was left of it. The pictures are incredibly sad.

The interesting part is that Jeff went by there, as well, on his trip home to meet Parker. The house had been sold, and the new owners had moved a few things in and were beginning renovations.

This takes me back to last year, when Ian, Jeff, and I went to the house and decided to knock on the door and ask to come in to check things out. That's when we realized how poorly the owners took care of the house, and how they had changed nothing.

We walked away that day with my 5th grade project of Stonehenge, a drawing on notebook paper my brother Brian did and was still hanging up (?), the Pizza Hut magnet, an old Garfield poster (yes, also still hanging up)...what we left behind were all the random things the people who lived there decided to keep--our welcome mats, my mom's old, useless Christmas decorations...why they lived in a mess, I don't know. Mind you, it had been 11 years since we lived there. And almost NOTHING CHANGED. Yowsers.

So, the new owners bought the house, and somehow it burned pretty much to the ground. When Jeff stopped by, the adults were there cleaning things up, and Jeff spoke with them. They had 3 kids. The best part of this whole story was that Jeff shared a lot of our childhood memories with them, told them about how the house had been in good condition and the wonderful times we had there. It opened their eyes to the possibilities, which the latest owners had deteriorated from view.

OK, the second best part of the story was this. The woman began speaking of how their oldest daughter (maybe she was 15 or 16) did NOT want to move, was really upset about it, angry, etc. Well, she was ripping out the carpet in my old bedroom, and her attitude shifted.

For some crazy reason, I had no carpet in my bedroom for a matter of years....we ripped it up, were going to replace it...and...got lazy? I don't know. But, concealed under an area rug, I began writing on the floor. With the dates (it was the 80's)....about life, how things were going. I intially intended for someone to find it years and years later...like a memorial, and like a message to a future owner.

Better than I ever expected, this girl found the writing and her attitude lifted. She told her mom she realized whoever had that room had been happy and had good memories there. It meant something to her, changed her perception, and she felt a connection with the younger me.

All I have to say is Hooray for that!! I am so excited to have heard that story, and it means the world to me.

Jeff says they plan on rebuilding the house almost exactly as it was. Of course, it won't be the same. But I do hope to go back someday and meet the new family and see what they've done. They did indeed buy a very happy, blessed home.

If I were a treehouse, my name would be Samuel.