3027 W. Lacrosse

For two people that try honestly to be fully united, we have a thorn of disagreement that lurks around this time of year...

Our first house was a cute little tuna can in the Audubon Park neighborhood. When we first moved in Abe refinished the antique hardwoods and I made new curtains for all the windows. We made it quaint and homey and felt proud to be owning a home as young married parents. We had room for Malachi and welcomed Josiah into the family while living there.

When we went to Alaska, Seth and Sarah moved into the place and made home. It was a great little place and when we came back from our adventure North to share Ezra with the family we squeezed ourselves right back in with them. It was tight and it was wonderful!

Ezra died there and Abe and I went different directions on what to do with the house. I wanted nothing to do with the house, the space that gave a stage to Ezra's death. I left to the hospital and never stepped a foot back, I imagined feeling the sense of panic and death for the surroundings there and I felt brave about so many things I could handle in life and that was absolutely not one of them.

Abe left for work the afternoon Ezra died and the house was still home, and in the midst of the tragedy he came back to he also lost his place to call home. He very selflessly let my decision be the rule and in the days following he went back and laid down on the floor to cry and mourn the loss of Ezra, and the house that also gave the back drop to the story of his life.

We've been struggling with this and probably will again. Until today I had never even gone so much as to drive by the house, to see the steps I stumbled down to get in the car and drive to the hospital. As we move along in this life, our journey, the things that are the most difficult to face also bring great healing and closure. Wellesley is closed and we've been doing different things to maneuver it's inconveniences. Driving home from mom and dads tonight I was talking to Abe and without much thought drove dangerously close to C street where we would turn to go home 4 years ago, and in the spur of the moment I decided to turn, with little thought and much thought all at once, all the times I've been so close in the last 4 years and decided against it.

The house is still very quaint, and the curtains still hung the same. And I cried big elephant tears and took it in for a few minutes and realized how wonderful it was to live there, and how terrible it is that we don't still, and I missed it and don't want it back.

I am wondering in this the season of Ezra where we will find a sense of home again and I feel a release... that places don't bind us, and we will live well wherever we are.

Baby Boy! I love you in "the cross house" (as it has been affectionately dubbed by Malachi and Josiah) We will do our best in the places we find ourselves on earth.... until the ever after.