The promise of each new spring

We’re moving to a new house next week and every time I ask the kids how they’re feeling about it, Deaglan says the same thing: I can’t wait because Dad says we’re getting those diving rockets Shannon has at her house! 

And Naveen answers me with a question to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. You mean that house with the pool that we saw last year ago?  

Yes.

It was the end of May but I remember how time felt as a kid.

Truth is, I’ve been walking around in a daze, reliving our time here; watching the past seven years in flashes on the projector of my mind. In the spare room, I only see the nursery it used to be. The sound of lullabies tinkling in the background as I nurse my babies to sleep night after night. 

I walk by walls and finger the grooves left by baby gates, freshly painted over, but the scars still there. I see each of the boys crawling and eventually walking up and down the well-worn stair case; stare a little longer at the framed pictures along the rail,  when they were just babies.

Downstairs I sit bemused on the recliner, gaze out the front window, as neighbors walk by with their dogs, pass the tree I’ve come to love. The one I eyed up suspiciously that first summer but who has become my loyal and constant companion in watching these boys grow. 

I thank it, not for the first time, for allowing our babies to swing from its branches, for being the touch point for all their games, for patiently indulging them summer after summer as they struggle to scale its trunk. I thank it for its breezy shade in the hot summer months and for the way it stands proudly through the cold winter, bare for all to see, clinging to the promise of each new spring.

I hope the new owners will treasure you old friend.

In the evenings, we kick the ball around or I just sit back to watch the kids play in the backyard. My mind takes me back to other moments we’ve had here. I watch myself walk down the aisle, in a pretty white dress, past the handful of family and friends, a baby on my hip and six white roses in my hand; I make my way toward my sweet love to say I do.

It felt so right to do it here! 

This place that made us a family, settled us into our best selves.

And when I ask Shaune how he’s feeling about it - he’s the more sentimental one of us – he hesitates. I have to remind him it’s time to move on. We really did make the right decision.

It wasn’t the plan to stay here forever.