The End of an Era

I know you are wondering where I have been. Well, when I sat down to post on Saturday, I discovered our computer was dead. As in the hard drive went out. So I have been without my computer. And I know what else you are thinking...where are all of these recipes and decorating ideas I talked about? I promise, they are coming. I already have ideas and pictures ready. But today, I want to talk about something different. It's the end of an era.


Sunday night we drove for several hours, slept for a few hours, and spent the entire day yesterday in sweltering heat and humidity with no air conditioning sorting and emptying my husband's childhood home in preparation for it's closing and sale next week. I was prepared for the sweat and the hard work. What I was not prepared for was the memories.


Tears and laughter freely flowed throughout the day as item after item brought a memory. "Look what I found! Do you remember the time..." "I remember the day dad got this..." "It was my job to clean this as a kid..." This house is so much more than a house. It is where my husband and I dated, and where our wedding rehearsal dinner was held. It's where the roses for our wedding came from, and where I lost my engagement ring in the back yard (it was found!). It's where we brought our babies after they were born and where they grew up, and where we took pictures of them in the same tree in the back yard every summer of their childhood. It's where they brought their spouses to meet grandma. It's where my daughter, now married and the mother of three, and I learned to bake pies, watching and helping my mother-in-law. It is the home of countless games of croquet, Parcheesi, and marbles; huge family Christmas dinners, and 4th of July picnics so we could watch the fireworks and have water hose fights among the siblings. It's where our kids played hide and seek, caught fireflies in jars, and built towers with egg cartons; and where our grandkids played with glow sticks in the dark in the basement. It's where we gathered after my husband's father died. It's where we came home to.


Last night, after it was all done, we gathered in a restaurant for a meal. Because that's all there was. And my brother-in-law looked at me and said, "It's true. Life really is a vapor, just like God said." James 4:14 says, "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." It's times like these that we realize anew what is most important - it's not about material things, but our personal relationship with God that matters. Because sooner or later, we are all going to come to the end of an era. Or the end of a life. And if you don't know Christ as your Savior and have a real relationship with God, then you truly do have nothing.


With a grateful heart,
Kathi