Thirty three years

I've lived in this house. I've lived here longer than I was old when I moved in - and I felt very grown up then, so efficective finding the right house for the right price in the right neighborhood. It was the house where Kerry and I wanted to raise our children, and where we got our family off to a start. I sit writing tonight in the room that was first Joanna's nursery and then Ruth's. We sure didn';t expect this house to catch fire one terrifying night and be rebuilt with love. We didn't expect Kerry to die young. Widowed in this house with two little girls, I doubted and hoped that I could ever find another good man who would love me and live in this house with use. And then Bob came into our lives and we all learned together that, hard as blending a family is, love is stronger than loss.

The house has gone through so many changes, as I have myself - messy stages and beautifications, stagnation and renewal. Now the physical house is emerging in new form as the homse for our co-housing family. Ruth and Chris have reclaimed the garage, which was cluttered, disorganized, dirty, over full with inherited tools, old boxes, camping gear, stored broken furniture, and things I didn't even know the names of. I scrubbed the garage floor tonight whileRuth painted the ceiling bright white for the new incarnation as phjoto studio. It seems right that Ruth chopped down the old hedge that grew very tall in front


of the house, taller and taller as the years passed. Now there is a sense of openness when I walk out the front door - new possibilities await.