The house is empty....

22 years ago we bought the Glacier Highway House from a family that had a second home in Arizona which they were planning to make their full-time residence. The mother had MS, Dad was well retired in his 70's, and their family gone. They decided to leave everything behind as part of the sale. We were a young, just out of the military family and could use lots of help filling the big space. None of our furnishings were much to speak of, so we were delighted to settle into their shadow and slowly convert the place to our own. We still have some of the things they left behind, never having completely removed their presence from the home. The point is, the house has never been empty in our memory. It is now. The crew of locust-like movers and packers stripped the place to the walls, wrapped it, boxed it, and packed it away, a relatively modest 10,000 pounds that now sits in storage at the World Wide Movers warehouse near the Empire Building. The house looks both bigger and smaller to me. Empty and a bit forlorn actually. You see all the little dings I always meant to fix up but really didn't notice in the background of daily living. It echoes a bit. I know I sound a bit maudlin in leaving it but I'm actually quite relieved. Selling the house was a big step in being able to move on. We are more than ready to say goodbye to snow removal, excited to begin a visit to family without a thousand dollar minimum plane ticket to start, thrilled to think we will be in perhaps the same area code with many of our most beloved family. But just for a bit, there is the twinge of memory for all that made our family life special on the water, in Alaska, in that house, now all put away for the next step in our lives.