These Walls Cry

Today was one of those exceptionally hard days that life brings along sometimes. I was called out to the house I grew up in, on very short notice, to say my final goodbyes. My dad told me a few months ago that he was selling it, but I didn't expect it all to happen so quickly. They close next Monday. I guess I was mistaken.

I took two friends with me to go pick up the things my stepmom pulled out of the attic that she thought I might want to keep. I didn't realize this trip would tug at my heart, as I went through boxes with my mom's handwriting on them, and as I went through toys that held mountains of memories. I, of course, played it off as a fun adventure, when really inside my heart was slowly tearing. Losing the place you could take people home to to look at pictures and go through childhood treasures isn't easy. Losing the place where you spent the only 17 years you had with your mother isn't easy. Losing the backyard and closets and hallways you spent hours playing in with your favorite playmate isn't easy. This place doesn't exist anymore.

After I gathered all of my things, I decided to walk through the house one more time. I walked through the room I slept in for 18 years, the room my mother slowly died in, the room my brother and I spent hours make-believing in, and the bathroom my mom and I redid the last summer she was alive. I felt compelled to go get the camera. While none of the bedrooms still look the way they did when my mom was alive, my bathroom still held the same look. I had to take a picture of our last project. I had to keep a memory.

On my way back towards the door, I tried to listen very closely to what the walls would say if they could talk. It wasn't long before I realized that my walls didn't talk. My walls cry. My walls hold years of heartbreak, years of suffering, and whispers of death. These are things that I could hear the echos of in the walls every time I set foot in this house. These are the things I would remember first and feel the most when I came home. These things are finished. These things are no more, and I can leave them here.

While it was so hard to lose the place I lived with the person I miss the most, my dear best friend (nine years my senior) gently reminded me that it's a part of growing up. That it happens to all of us at some time, and that we have to learn to carry the good on with us, and let go of the rest. This is what I will try to do. I will try to leave the hurt and the fear in the house, and never look back. I will try to smile as I remember the joy of holidays spent there and the fun I had with my brother on rainy Saturday afternoons. It's a house, and I don't need it to remember. I have to let go. I have to cry with the walls, and then turn and walk away. Death has come, and taken the house with it. The fear is finished. It has been overcome.

This is part of my story now, and it is part of who I am. What I choose to let live on will forever be held in my heart. What I choose to leave behind is done. I pick up the pieces, and I walk away. It's growing up. It's letting go. And I can do this.