The first hello and the last good-bye.

Last week one morning I woke after dreaming of the house at "Four Oaks". What is remarkable about this is it is the first time since we left that I have dreamt of a house that meant so much. When we moved from the Jordan house I regularly dreamt of it. Repetitive dreams of living there again. Dreams so vivid that when I woke I spent several seconds re-orienting myself to where exactly I was. Only to be relieved when I realized I was no longer there. I wasn't alone in this. The girls often tell me of their "back to Jordan dreams". We lived in the Jordan house for a total of roughly 6 years, the house at "Four Oaks" housed us for a lifetime.

Then there is this: Building "Four Oaks" was the First Hello of my life as a true adult. Marty and I were just kids but so wanted to live in the "North Woods". Our lives in the cities were relatively easy, we were surrounded by family in an area we both grew up in. The safety net was huge, failure not an option. The purchase of 40 acres in Northern Minnesota really was done on a whim. Marty had gone north with his brother to help construct a house for my sister-in-laws Uncle. Wasting time one day they drove around the area, searching "For Sale Signs" and dreaming of what it would be like to leave the comfort of what you know for the uncertainty of what you don't. They stumbled across a 79 acre parcel that was deeply wooded and very remote. It sat at the end of a dead-end dirt road that had one family of year-round residents. We bought that land together on a whim. Marty's brother and wife were going to move there and live full-time. Marty and I were going to use it as a weekend camping spot. It turns out the opposite happened. Marty and I sold our home in Jordan and headed north with three small children and one on the way. For the next 28 years we built a house and a life. We literally started from nothing, living in a mouse-infested rental for 28 days down the road from the building site. We started building in November which gives you an indication of just how naive we were. The building we built was supposed to be a garage, somehow it never became anything but our home. What we built in 1980 was not even recognizable when we sold in 2008. I loved that house. I loved that land. I loved those year-round neighbors. If you are going to jump off the deep end in life, you hope the fall is a good one. It was.

This is what I know: In 2008 Marty placed his hand over the top of mine and we closed the front door of that house for the last time. It isn't that I never thought we may sell and move someday, it was that I never thought we would sell and move that way. We had Mikes house and we had our house, one of which had to be sold. I think back and no longer feel certain that anything we did was done with any conscious thought. We were running on instinct and emotion. We had prematurely entered the winter of our lives. They say when faced with danger, the human response is fight or flight. In this case it was flight, there was nothing to fight. The thought of selling Mikes house was inconceivable. It was the place of his dreams, the canvas upon which he was writing a part of his life. It was what was left when someone so important was gone. The Four Oaks house had in one phone call become a crime scene. I couldn't see past the kitchen counter and the rocks I placed there coming in from my walk. I couldn't see past the look on Marty's face and wanting to know why he looked like that and instinctively knowing that when he hung up the phone, part of me was going to die. This house that had sheltered us from harm, held us up through all life, was there for every memory made....birth, teenage years, graduations, birthdays, anniversary's, more firsts than I can tell you, came down to a "last". In my mind it was surrounded with yellow police tape, as surely as if Mikes death had happened there. I could not take in that the evening before Mike had sat on the bar stool in the kitchen reading the paper while Marty was making supper, the same bar stool I fell against not 15 hours later when Marty hung up the phone.

The day of the closing that would give our house to a total stranger I left a bottle of wine called "Black Mountain" on the bar and a note wishing this man well. He was recently divorced and sad. I know sad. I told him that the house he bought was strong. It housed a family through the best of life and sheltered us through the worst. I told him that four strong and loving people were raised on that land and their footprints are everywhere. I told him that moving forward is hard especially when you have no choice. I wished him well.

We have lived at Mikes now for almost five years. We have changed many things, but left others the same. The first feeling of we had to live here has been replaced. I am not sure that we made the right decision. It was the right decision at the time, for all the wrong reasons.  We have cared for Mikes things to the best of our ability and time has helped us realize what Mike would have told us all along. He would have told us to hold on, whatever it takes, hold on.  It's all we could do, and somedays it still is. We will never live anywhere again with the same innocence that it took to build Four Oaks. I know that 28 years of memories can be erased in one phone call. It has taken me 5 years to dream of the house that we called home for so long. I took the photo album out when I woke last week and for the first time looked at all the photos I took in the months leading up to good-bye. I drive by the house occasionally under the pretense of checking the 20 acres we still own. The truth is I just want to spend time looking at the past. I am the Miranda Lambert song, "The House That Built Me"."I thought if I could touch this place or feel it. This brokeness inside me might start healing, out here it's like I'm someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself. If I could just come in I swear I'll leave, won't take nothing but a memory from the house that built me."

There is a saying that two of the hardest things in life are the first hello and the last good-bye. I have enjoyed many first hellos, Marty, the kids and grand-kids stand out. Good-bye is the hardest thing you'll ever do.

till next time.