Post 2: The House That Held Us

 

The house is gone now, but I can still walk through it.

It faced south, like it was meant to greet the day head-on. There was a front porch that wrapped across the front and leaned slightly toward the west, as if it wanted a better look at the setting sun. A side door sat on the west wall, and a back door on the east—each one used for a different purpose, each one part of the rhythm of daily life.

Inside, everything revolved around a central fireplace. Not tucked away on a wall, but planted right in the middle like a heartbeat. The rooms spread out from it—bedrooms, bathrooms, the kitchen off to one side. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t modern. But it worked.

There was a small room near the kitchen, something like a utility space. My grandfather used it as a laundry room. It also served as a kind of back entry—one of those in-between spaces where outside life met inside life.

Upstairs, there was an unfinished attic. No insulation. No drywall. Just exposed structure and stored items that had outlived their usefulness but not yet their place. Most of it is gone now, lost when the house was torn down. And truth be told, I probably would have thrown most of it away eventually.

But that’s not really the point.

The point is, that house held us. It held conversations, routines, laughter, arguments, quiet mornings, and long days. It wasn’t just where life happened.

It was how life was organized.

And even now, standing on bare ground, I still know exactly where everything was.

This is post two of a multi part series, reflections on the farm owned by my father and my grandfather. This is written for me and my siblings.