Saturday morning. I sip the last of the Starbucks Christmas blend coffee, and gaze around the house we live in now.
An arctic -30 degrees, yet morning sun bathes the snow outside with golden sparkles, and creates gleaming reflections around the walls and wood of my home. The sky a brilliant blue, pretending for a while to be a scene from someone’s Hawaiian vacation, until the blast of winter air reveals its little theatre. Still, this one-act play is welcome reprieve from the grey, icy reality of the last weeks.
I am getting used to this new home rather quickly, as it felt like a warm blanket even at first viewing. We have lived in many homes over the years, from apartments to tiny rentals, larger houses, a 60’s ranch-style bungalow in the country, a newer 2008 detached in a small town. All have unique memories. The last few have kid’s height marks on a section of wall, which I made sure to photograph, but would dearly love to own.
While it’s lovely to think of living in the same place always, and is perhaps the ideal, each house we made a home visually marks a chapter in our lives. I was a baby in a small house with slanted floors, a toddler in a trailer out in the bush, and a girl in a beautiful, cedar-planked home that was built just for us. I remember my mom debating with the cabinet maker on styles of wood and handles, the conversations on carpet colour, that first time sleeping in a new room. The fireplace being built brick by brick, the sidewalks poured. I can still see the square pattern of the 1970’s hallway carpet: red, orange, black, blue and gold.
And then there were dorm rooms, and bedroom and basement suites down the road from college. One roommate and I even renovated: carpet-cleaning, painting, replacing bathroom fixtures and re-doing the kitchen cabinets on a meager student budget.
After I was married, my husband and I moved into a lovely apartment fittingly called “Parklane”. It was spacious, clean, and quiet. And expensive. With only Dylan working and me at university, it was too much, even with eating Kraft Dinner every other meal. We found a cheaper but dirtier alternative, complete with grumpy apartment manager and stained carpets, for a few hundred dollars less a month. Alas, it was an adult-only complex, and so when I realized I was pregnant some months later, we knew we would have to move again. Oh, those horrible, hot days when I was sick in bed, no strength to walk, no car to drive, and the cigarette smoke and paint smells drifting steadily through the screens, sending me retching over the toilet again and again.
By the grace of God, we found a little rental house in Spruce Grove, just before the baby was due. It’s still there, 25 years later, looking much the same. We had to pay only $650/month plus utilities, which was a life-saver and left just enough for groceries and bills, and the most basic La-Z-Boy rocker-recliner that Dylan bought one day after work and stuffed into our Pontiac Sunfire. Putting together that green chair, thinking we were ahead of the game by a few weeks…nope, we needed it two days later!
Then, we moved to the lower mainland of British Columbia. Rent was much higher, and we could only afford the top suite in a fairly ragged house in Aldergrove. It was blue, at least, and had a yard, and the lady who lived downstairs with her dog, Pepper, was an eccentric but sweet person. Our daughter decorated the walls with tiny, colourful crayon marks, hoping I wouldn’t notice. We went for lots of walks in the neighborhood and drives to the park. Eventually, we were able to buy a house on a corner lot in Abbotsford, renting out the basement suite. I had saved every paycheck from my half-time teaching job at White Rock Christian Academy, minus the cost of daycare and gas for the 1 hour-each-way drive. Sometimes, I don’t know how I managed. It was one of the most exhausting periods of my life. Such a struggle to make that meager $550 every two weeks. If I could do it over again, I wouldn’t. It wasn’t worth the stress and the toll it took on my health and our family, but it seemed like the only option at the time. And then, baby number two was on the way, and it was a boy.
(Somewhere in a box I have photos of those BC lower mainland homes, but I can’t find them today. Maybe they will turn up later.)
The next chapter was a special one. Our house on Schlick road was a bit of a fixer-upper, but it was perfect for us. The wide open spaces, both in house and yard, provided wonderful times of play for the kids. The trees were great to climb and the big rock as well, with a hammock, sandbox, playhouse, slide and swings creating a children’s dream. I’m glad we had those days in that house. My only regret was being so incredibly busy with teaching, long days for Dylan at work, and too many church and other responsibilities to actually enjoy and realize what we had. As the old song goes, ‘you don’t know what you got ’till it’s gone’. I dearly wish I had learned to savor the moments, but maybe that was part of teaching me to guard our time and family better today. We had a dog, Cinder, who loved to race around and do her “victory lap” every time we arrived home from school. I miss that faithful, large, stinky, beautiful dog.
Then, in 2014, we made another big decision. It felt like doors were closing, and with a lot of prayer and counsel, we moved to Three Hills so that Dylan could attend Prairie Bible College. He had always talked about wanting to study the Bible at college, and we sincerely felt called to ministry of some kind. He enrolled in the Bachelor of Ministry Pastoral program, and we found literally the only place for sale in town. It wasn’t even for sale, actually, but the realtor knew the owner had wanted to sell. She called, and it was agreed we could take a look. And so we ended up at 1 Sunrise Crescent, another corner house with a big lot, needing a fence, but not much else.
In September 2023, we moved back to Edson. There are many tales in between, so many it would take a book. Our kids became teenagers, and eventually young adults in that home. When we moved in, it was Dylan’s first day as a student. When we left, our daughter was a college student. Why did we abandon the dream? Ah, but then there won’t be stories for next time. And some are still being written.
These Places Stay
That feeling of home, it stays in your skin.
However long, however many years,
it’s the fall of the light
the colours on the wall
Someone played with the cat here,
We opened the Christmas presents by this window.
I watched a loved one cross the street,
Praying, hoping.
In the silence of an emptied home,
Last look before the keys aren’t yours,
The heart feels full, like water brimming over the edge of a cup
Heavy, liquid gold and light
Breathless –
As if all the air had been swept out of the room.
The places where we’ve lived our days
In haste, in quiet contemplation
Loud conversation,
Prayers and sobs and hugs,
Pleading one day, laughing the next.
All the jokes and smiles
The dishes washed and put away.
Morning coffees, folded clothes, curtains opened to the sun.
Blinds closed to keep out the cold,
Rain slipping down the panes
On a stormy summer afternoon.
These places stay in the bones.
They recognize us, and they wave goodbye
As we come and go, as
New families come, and then go.
The years take their toll on the paint, wood and stone
And these places mark our lives,
Hold the very time we’ve lived within the walls.
Stories for Humans 