I imagine a young family with a small child as the first owners of the home. I can imagine them standing back with arms around each other looking at the home they had built with pride while a child runs around the yard. I can picture the man grabbing the woman up in his arms and carrying her across the thresh hold as she protests to set her down but secretly loves every minute of it. I see her sewing curtains for the windows, planting flowers and planning a vegetable garden so she can fill the cellar with canned goods for the harsh winters. I wonder if there was a barn on the property. In my mind’s eye I see a grand barn which is the man’s domain. I picture contented animals in stalls and farm equipment freshly oiled for the next season. I picture a couple of more children along the years and can almost hear the sound of laughter while little ones chase lighting bugs in the summer months.
I visualize years going by with heartaches and illness. I see the kids moving on and starting their own lives. I see the man and the woman are old now, the house showing signs of their age with a sagging porch roof and faded paint. Then I see the house empty. No life in it anymore. No laughter. No warmth. It just seems too sad to imagine so I picture another young family moving in and once more the house shines. I see a new coat of paint, new linoleum, new curtains and new life. With the new life come the ups and downs of sorrow and joy, birth and death. I can imagine the year when someone decided it was time to build a newer and grander home which is the home I sit in now. I can feel the excitement of living in the small 3 room house while watching the new modern house being built on the hill. And once again a couple stand looking with pride at the home they have built with their arms around one another while the old house fades into a memory.
As I walk around the old place, I touch the rough gray walls no longer graced with paint and I wish the walls could talk to tell me the memories of the house. Tell me about the people who loved, lived, and took shelter under its roof. Bits and pieces of the old lives emerge into ours as the years go by. We find traces of bridles, barbed wire, and broken pottery. Old homes are beautiful in a wonderful, sad kind of way.