Week #6: Our Home

In fall 2019 – that seems like such a long time ago already – we packed up the home that our family lived in since I was pregnant with my oldest son (he’s 14 now). That’s where all three boys learned to walk, talk and where we made beautiful memories with friends and family. We needed more space so it was a good move, but it was still a lot to process. So I did what I usually do in emotional times – I wrote a song. I worked on it as I was packing up boxes and by the time we were ready to move, it was finished.

It wasn’t just our family home – my mother-in-law purchased it in the 1970s and my husband was 3 when they moved in. After he graduated high school, they moved out and she rented it out for years until we moved in.

I thought it was cool to be raising our kids in the same home he grew up in, with the boys growing up in his childhood room, and felt much more nostalgic about moving then he was. I wrote the song as a way to help my sons process the move, although it was therapy for me as well.

This door welcomed you when you were new
This wall saw you learn to crawl
Your first steps were across this floor
Soon we won’t live here anymore

So much happened within those walls, including treasured visits with loved ones no longer with us. For our youngest son, the toughest part was the feeling that he was leaving the memory of our beloved dog, who had died two years earlier, behind.

These rooms, filled with scenes of memories
Those stairs shared ups and downs through the years
Our next steps lead down a new road
We’ll follow it to find our way home

But in reality, it’s not the walls or the doors or the rooms that make a house a home – it’s the people who live there.

What makes a house a home? The people living in it
A place to love and grow, a new beginning in it
As we settle in, our next chapter begins
We’ll make this new house a home.

And that’s what we did – we moved, we settled into our new home (and thankfully we had this additional space, as the pandemic arrived in Arizona a few months later, leaving us at home much more than usual). After we moved out, the house needed some renovations and we’ve been back a few times but with its new look, it doesn’t carry the same memories as it used to (although the spruced up version looks much nicer!)

I thought I’d share this song this week because as of yesterday, after more than 40 years, a new owner now holds the keys to the home where my kids learned to walk and talk and where we became a family.

One afternoon after the renovations were nearly complete, my husband and I went back to attempt to record this song within those walls (yes those walls that watched my kids learn to crawl). As I sang the song, I tried to establish some kind of closure, trying to soak up all the memories that happened in that very room. But truthfully, without all the furniture and our stuff, the room didn’t feel like home anymore. It seemed like a vague memory.

Here’s the best attempt at the song during the day we filmed it at the very place of inspiration: