Do You Like your House?

At home, relaxed, where they belong

I am not sure why I hesitate when I am asked this question, but I feel like it is such a nonsense question in the big scope of things.  How can you like a house when you have just lost a son or two sons. And how can you like a house that is suppose to be your home when it’s missing almost half of the people that are suppose to make up the home but how can you not like the house when the most important people that you still have with you live in that house. It is at home where we are reminded the most of who is missing. It is our home that seems broken for life. On Friday I had discussed this with a friend and that night I pondered this again and I just started weeping again for our two precious sons who do not get to live with us in this house.

In the beginning after either one of the boys left for their eternal home, home was at times the most painful place to come to.  In fact in the first weeks coming home after having been out for only a few hours could be so extremely painful, because outside the home things can seem almost normal but at home its empty and sad while at the same time when we did go out I felt like all I needed is to go back home where I still felt close to my missing loved one. Coming home from a trip is especially painful. So much so that often it felt easier to just stay at home, so we would not have to endure coming home.

 When we moved into this house just over two months after Tyler went to heaven, I would have liked to move into a hotel room where we could be close together all the time. Any house with more then two rooms seemed too big. This house seemed much to big.  I think part of the reason that question bothers me is because we live in a nice house and a big house, not new, but nice and big all the same. We would not hesitate a moment though to move into an old run down, small house if that meant we would be all together again. So I don’t think it’s so much me not liking the house as me wanting everyone to know that a big beautiful house does not make a home and our home will always feel empty on this earth whether it’s big our small. Even a hotel room though it is small would feel empty.

But having said all that I feel God gave us exactly what we needed in this house. After we saw this house there was never a doubt in our mind whether this was the right one.  Tyler said, “I don’t like the kind of windows the living room has but I like the inside and I want us to buy it.”  We all felt that this was the house we wanted, our little oasis. I felt like God must have had us in mind already when it was built 10 years earlier. One of the things we as family had dreamed about was having a pool in the back yard and this place has that, our back yard is surrounded by trees/bush so in the summer back there we feel like we are in our own little park. 

Viewing this house Aug 31, 2017

Roderick died in the basement.  When we looked for a house, we looked for something with a walk out basement, we did not want any dark basement, in other words it was not supposed to feel like a basement. This house has no basement at all, which to us was even better. How many houses can you find in Winnipeg without a basement, in fact for most people this would have been a negative but not for us. After we purchased the house but before we moved in Tyler also died in the basement. It took about a month before Jake even walked into the basement again.  The other thing is the big windows, (not very energy efficient but…) every room has a couple of big windows. Those dark mornings are the hardest for us and we long for the sun to rise, in this house I see the sun rise every morning from my bed. In the winter I see it from the kitchen as well and the living room when I get up before sunrise.

I believe this house is a gift from God and I appreciate it, yes in fact I love it, but I still hesitate to answer. Please don’t take this as another question you can’t ask someone that’s grieving, I really don’t mind at all when people ask it, I appreciate them acknowledging it and it reminds me every time how good the Lord is and how he provided us with a beautiful safe place before we knew how badly we would need it but it also reminds me how the house alone does not make a home it’s the people in it and we will never own a house again that will be perfect enough not to feel like it is missing some of the people that belong in it.  Two especially important, precious sons.  

If you are new to this blog and wonder what happened to our boys you can find it in the post titled Our Story, on the web version it is featured on the right side of the screen.