Home is where the Heart is, but part of our Heart was in that home.

Today I was all set to blog about the great Father's Day Eve we had yesterday, then while Mike, JJ, Amara and I were at church today and eating lunch afterward at China Moon in Chickasha our country home was burning down.  To say the least that has taken the wind out of my sails today.  It just did not feel right to blog about how wonderful yesterday was when all I wanted to do was cry today.  So I have decided to pour my heart out tonight.

JJ and Amara are asleep and Mike is at work.  I told Mike I know that people are going to think we are crazy or just plain self centered, but this has just been a devastating day.  I will back up... In 1985 Mike and I  were looking for a place to buy in Anadarko School District.  We wanted to live in the country.  We had been living the last 5 years on the farm I grew up on.  We decided to get out of the farming business and move our kids to a larger school.  We loved Oney and so did our children, but I had a pretty good idea that Oney was going to have to consolidate in the near future.  We looked at several different places, but then one day Sue told us about this place east of Washita on 72 acres of trees.  The first time we drove up to this older square house that sat about one quarter of a mile off the road in the trees, I knew I was in love.  It was only 7 miles from town and about 15 miles from my job teaching at Oney.  This was the perfect place to bring our 3 children, two horses, a dog and a cat.  We only brought the house cat with us.

The house was not red wood, but the wood was painted a deep red color.  It sat in the middle of the 72 acres up on a hill with a canyon down below.  When you looked out the huge picture window on the north side of the house it looked like a picture from a house in Colorado.  When it snowed in the winter it really gave you that feeling.  There was just one problem.  It was a 2 bedroom house and there were 5 of us.  The good news was our girls were young and could share a room.  Ryan was excited to make the basement his room.  He loved being down there.  So we turned a 2 bedroom house into a 3 bedroom and later when the girls found out they could not share a room....we turned the family room into another bedroom.  It was really sort of cool.

The inside of the house had real wood paneling that was sort of a knotty pine with a varnish on it.  I remember a close neighbor to our farm at Oney had that same paneling in their home.  I loved it.  We had a corner fireplace.  I had always wanted a fire place.  We bought a fireplace insert and it really heated our house.  The house worked just perfect for us.  It was not new, it was not really large, nor was it the most updated kitchen, but it was ours and we loved it.

The kids loved living in the trees.  We had a large yard with a big trampoline under big shade trees.  We had wild turkey's, deer and lots of quail.  Ryan had a hunting place in his own back yard.  We were close to the river and our neighbors put in a large pond and the boys fished in it.  Those boys were always up to something.  Our next neighbor had 2 boys very close in age to Ryan and they had one daughter very close in age to our two girls.  There was always excitement around our two houses.

We lived in this house in 1997 when Ryan was killed in a car accident.  He died in January of that year and then my mother died in May of the same year.  There were several reasons why we moved to town to live in my mother's house after she died.  The girls were happier in town and the truth is Mike and I kind of like the convenience of living in town too.The one thing though, we were not willing to give up our house and the 72 acres in the country. We really intended to re-model the house and move back out there.  There are several reasons why that never happened, but when people wanted to buy the place Mike would price it so high that no one would ever really buy it.  The truth is we could never sell the place that had so many memories of all of our children.  Because Ryan was gone, it was sort of like a part of him was still there.  When we went out there it was like you could feel his presence there too.

That brings me to what happened today.  How do you explain to people who have never lost a child how painful it is.  It has been 14 years since we lost our only son.  A person asked me one day, "Do you think about Ryan very often?"  I just said do you think about your son very often.  The child was only about 6..I got a very strange look from that person.  If you were wondering the same thing, yes people who had a child who has gone on to be with Jesus...think of that child every minute of every day of every year.  The pain does not go away.  The hole that is left in your heart and family is there forever.  It does not get easier and you Do Not get over it as some people think you should.  Yes, you find a way to go on and you don't walk around in tears all the time, but there are times when you do cry.  Well, today I must tell you that I have cried all day.  I did not live in that house any more, but the memories of my children growing up lived in that house.  Ryan, Krista and Amanda's spirits were in that house, along with the many Things I left out there.  Do I need those things, can I live without them, of course I can.  I live each day without my son, but I don't have to like it or get over it.  It is a part of who I am.

I certainly hope that no one ever has to experience that sense of loss.  I am talking about the sense of loss of losing a child or in losing the home you raised your children in to  a fire.  I still go out and drive by the house I grew up in every once in awhile just to remember my childhood.  I can see my dad driving that little Massey Ferguson tractor up the road and riding back to the house with him.  I don't know how it will feel each time to go to our little farm out by the Washita River from now on.  I just don't know, but I think it will hurt and I will cry just a little each time.  The trees and the house are gone.  I know that trees can grow back, but I'm not sure that those old trees can grow back in my lifetime.  Much of that land was native and had never seen a plow on it ever.  Right now my heart is heavy and it feels much like it did when Ryan died.  It is sort of like losing him all over again.  It has brought back many hurtful memories.  It has reminded me how much I miss my son.  I'm sorry but that house was not empty at all, there were things in it but more importantly there was a little bit of each person in our family there.  Like I said before we will go on, but just a little piece of our hearts was torn away today when the fire came up that driveway and took our house that we called home.

P.S.  Maybe tormorrow I can write about our Father's Day Eve.