Home for Sale

The ball has begun to roll on the sale of our home.  Jorg bought the signs.  We have boxed things up.  We have met the bank and a lawyer.  We moved into this house when I was 7 months pregnant with Lukas.  I have memories of lying on the bed after working all day feeling Lukas move in my belly as I stared out the window.  (The days of pre-children when we lie on the bed during the day and just rest!)  I cut apples at the kitchen counter while Jorg created a spread sheet to map out the contractions.  I labored upstairs in my room with Lukas and labored on the stairs with Julien.  I have raised my boys in this home and now they are bursting at the seams.  Toys falling out of shelves and books stacked along the walls, beds side by side as they echo each others breathing all night long. 
How could 7 years have slipped by?  What will this next house hold?

Lukas came with us to look at houses over the weekend.  Julien was asleep in the car.  While exploring one sweet little house he stopped and touched the door.  "This door feels really light.  Isn't light Mama?"  He said.  Later he commented that the house felt cold.  The floors were cold.  While we were in the kitchen he said that it smelled different.  "A good smell or a bad smell?"  Laughed the woman showing us the house nervously.  "It smells like maple."  Lukas said, steering clear of value judgments.  In church on Sunday I explained the Joys and Concerns book to Lukas.  I asked him if he wanted to write anything in the book that he was happy or worried about.  He said "I'm kind of worried about moving."  "I am too Lukas."  I said back.  I haven't found the right moment to ask him what exactly he is worried about.  I know what I am worried about.  I am worried about letting go of the last seven years.  While I know that time passes regardless of where I live, I somehow feel that byliving in this space I am closer to those memories.  I am reminded of past moments simply by watching the ice patterns form on the same window year after year.  I can recall standing at that window holding a 4 month old Lukas as the sun set on a January day in the quiet of my home simply watching the light reflect on the ice patterns.  When the street cleaner passes our house I remember Lukas screaming with joy and excitement and running to the window to see it.  I remember the tears if he didn't make it in time. I want to hold on to all these slipping sliding moments.  The popcorn on the lawn in the summer, the Easter egg hunts, the Christmas eve gatherings, the parades we watched from the front porch, the seemingly eventless days of crafting and snacks and Lukas lying on a pillow on the kitchen floor watching the tiles on our ceiling, the sweet bath the boys took tonight. I listened to them playing and singing and talking as I folded the clothes in the room next door.  Change.  Change is the only constant.