To the house on Scotland Road,

I miss you.

Not as badly, or as often, anymore, just sometimes, on nights when nostalgia comes to visit.

I’ve had a few houses since we left you – or rather since we sold you,

sorry about that -- but, I haven’t forgotten you.

You were the last house we all called home: all my sisters, and brother, and I and

a map of your layout is still filed away in my mind.

I can picture the stenciled blue and red kitchen walls, the brick fireplace, tiny attic doors,

front porch with always chipping, white paint. An old, gray tabby cat at the door step, lazily soaking up the sun light.

You were more than a house.

 

Never empty, rarely quiet, you were filled with teenagers and toddlers and love.

I learned to read in the living room by stumbling through my

 kindergarten homework one letter at a time.

C-A-T, cat. Right, Dad?

I learned baseball in the front yard,

giggled until dawn at my first sleepover in the upstairs guestroom,

made a mess “helping” Mom cook Sunday dinners in the kitchen.

My halcyon home.

 

The last time I saw you I could barely stand to look at you.

You were entirely barren: empty except for stacks of cardboard boxes, waiting to be packed up and driven away.

It looked as if we had never been there at all, not for one day,

let alone almost a decade.

 

But don’t worry,

I try not to remember you like that.

You were a great place to grow up. Thank you.

Love,

your old friend, Destiny