I should be packing up the remaining items in our kitchen right now...
The thing is, I keep stumbling upon time capsules, and at times, a memory takes my breath away. Was it yesterday or 100 years ago that I unwrapped these plates from a similar cardboard box? Dakota was sitting at the table asking me a million questions, and Brendan James' music was playing from my laptop. In between questions, we sang along.
I go to the bathroom to wash my face, and I see the ossified calking caked around the bathtub faucet, and I think back to the night that Dakota wandered into the kitchen with the faucet in hand, claiming that "the water pushed the faucet right out of the wall." I laugh now; I wish I had laughed then.
And then there's the time Dakota waddled into the kitchen wrapped in a towel. "Everything's fine. Don't mind me. Everything's just fine." It was of course not fine; water was gushing from the bathroom into the hallway-- the unintended byproduct of his failed experimental design: How much toilet paper could the toilet really flush?
It's a confusing grief to lose something that was never truly yours.
Then I grab a Food Lion bag to wrap non-perishable food and baking items.
I remember the day that we learned that our suspected miscarriages were likely symptomatic of another issue, and it would not be possible to start a family on our own. I fell apart in the Food Lion parking lot. Hours later, having elicited sympathetic glances from so many strangers, Glenn drove me to Ecotti for a late dinner. At the end of the meal, our waitress brought us a slice of Lemon Cream Cake. An older couple, the only other customers in the restaurant, had ordered it for us. They left before we could thank them. The Lemon Cream Cake became a symbol of enduring hope and the unexpected kindness of God, in spite of so many things we could not and cannot fathom.
I look at the kitchen walls now bare and recall another day the walls were naked. Glenn was at work, and in my restlessness, I decided to paint the kitchen. I stripped the walls, put up painter's tape, and talked openly with God for the first time since the Food Lion meltdown. That morning, I had received a phone call that there was a baby, and a possibility that he could become ours. In that moment, hope counterbalanced every sadness. Every ounce of silent grief became a reason to worship.
Ultimately, we did not end up with a baby, but God, in his mercy, preoccupied our minds that weekend with a stray dog... a dog that now forever ties us to a family that we love dearly.
For every heartbreak this house has witnessed, this house has sheltered greater moments of joy. This oven has prepared meals for so many people who became precious friends. This kitchen island became a crowded buffet for former students and their parents on more than one occasion. I was staring out the kitchen window, when I received a phone call from Dakota after two years of waiting and wondering if I would hear his voice again. As I write these words, I am sitting on the floor in the guest bedroom... the spot where I would read Dakota bedtime stories. Here I have found myself in the narratives of Roald Dahl, Andrew Clements, Katherine Applegate, C.S. Lewis, and R.J. Palacio.
Every room is a storehouse of memories, and I am grateful. While this house bore witness to some moments that threatened to shatter my faith, this house also held my faith together. It's the sweet, goofy collie stretched beside me. It's the man who just came to the door to check on me. It's walking onto the front porch, finding letters and/or elephant gifts from former students and neighbors (this happened at least once each month).
And even though I did not become a "mom" while living in these walls, our family grew in significant ways.
To every person who has entered our lives during the past seven years (since Glenn started teaching in GCPS), to every person who has entered our respective classrooms or paid a visit to our home-- thank you for reminding us that faith isn't found when our expectations match our reality. Faith resides in the love that exists in the moments in between. Faith is not the absence of difficult questions-- it's the comfort that we are never really alone with our unanswerable queries.
As I look at these increasingly vacant rooms, my heart is filled, and I believe that in a beautiful way, God is going to use this move to grow our family-- in more unexpected ways. He's done it before, and He will do it again.
And while we may no longer occupy the house on Cahill, these memories will always live inside us like buried treasures... the time capsules that underpin our faith.
Dear house on Cahill, We love you, too. I love you, too.
In Thanks,
Austen
