Dear 2560 Tom Anderson Road,
I wanted to write to you purely out of respect for what you have meant to us over the last two years. You see even though our relationship has been rocky, you have indeed served your purpose to our family. You have provided shelter to our children. You have provided heat when it was cold (well with exception of a few weeks that first winter) and cool air in the summer months. You have given me a place to bake for my friends and family, to prepare meals for us to eat, to do laundry, shower and all of the other things a good house does for you. And for that and all of the good memories that you have given us with our girls, I thank you. For these reasons I wanted to let you know that our time together is coming to an end.
Yes, I know it is hard to believe but we have decided that it is time to take our things and our children and move on. I am sure that there is a little place inside you (probably buried underneath that damn red and white bathroom) that thinks that some how, in some way, you have won the war that was waged between you and I in October of 2009. I am here to tell you that you have not. No, no my friend, I will leave this house with its rotting doors and termite infested porch with my head held high. I will walk away from the memories of backed up septic, flooding hot water heaters, and mice infestation smiling all the while knowing that it is I who won the war and you only won a few major battles.
You see that bathroom where my boy was born, where our fourth child was lost, where I slept on the floor at least 4 times sicker than I have been in the last ten years, that bathroom is where I came closer to Jesus than I have ever been in my entire life. That is where He met me when I cried out over and over again in sickness and in sadness. That is where I realized that I really "can do ALL things through Him who gives me strength".
And this living room that I have sat in over and over again begging the sweetest man alive to take me home, He used this living room and those conversations to show us that Genesis 50:20 is absolutely true. "What you intended to harm me with, God intended for good, to save many". And so everyday my sweet Doc would get up and go back to that practice and change lives in the name of Jesus despite what the enemy was doing here. And everyday we would be reminded that God has put us exactly where He wants us to be.
You see 2560 Tom Anderson Road, though I have felt defeated, lonely and lost more often than I care to remember over the last couple of years, I have also felt more joy, had stronger faith and learned more about my Savior than I have ever known. This is why you lose and I win.
Soon we will find a new home for our girls and we will pack our things into the 37 boxes that we have saved over the last two years anticipating this day. I will sweep the world's whitest kitchen floor one last time. I will clean off the porch sprayed with opossum blood and covered in dust, praying one more time that the floor does not fall out from under me. We will drive the 48 inch lawn mower out of the shed and laugh at the God forsaken field getting higher and higher as we load it into the U-Haul. I wipe down the red and white bathroom floor that has held my slumber more than once. Pray that all of the crayon comes off of the walls. I will praise Jesus for the hardwoods during potty training as I mop them with vinegar. We will leave a bowl of food for every damn cat in the neighborhood that comes to eat on our front porch and let Beauty say her goodbyes as we load her and only her up for the move. We will spray the chalk off of the sidewalk and take the trash to the convenience center one more time and then we will stop.
We will look around at this empty house that was such a blessing at a time when we thought things could not get worse, laughing at what seemed bad when all of this started. We will remember Presley as she was 5 months when we moved in, we will smile about how big Kat has gotten and maybe even cry a little. But don't get your hopes up 2560 Tom Anderson Road, because it is not you that we will miss. It is not the loose cabinets and mis-sized doors that will bring the tears. It is the memories, the years that have gone by, the time that is forever over that we will miss. You, my friend the turd, we will leave smiling. So get ready, I am on a mission and your time is short.
Love,
Melanie
ps. Romans 8:31
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