A Love Letter to Our House

How many places have you lived?
Now, how many of those places would you truly have considered home?

I've lived in a lot of different houses, apartments, duplexes.
I've only considered two different houses, my home.

This year, I have said goodbye to both homes.
The Fort McMurray fire ate up the house I considered home for more than 20 years. 
I am not deeply attached to my belongings, and I would venture to say the my Mom and Dad and my brother and his family were not so much bothered by the loss of their things as they were the loss of their home.  Their sanctuary.  Their collective soft place to land at the end of each day, together.

The home I live in now has been the place where I have become so many things.
A fiancé, a wife, a Mother.
Literally, my then boyfriend proposed to me on our deck.  Literally, we got married in front of our fireplace.
I felt my first contractions of my youngest children in this house.
They all took their first steps here.

We have endured so much in this house and I am grateful beyond measure for the memories we have made here.
I am a homebody and I am deeply, deeply attached to this house.

The bathtub has held bags and bags of ice to easy my aching body after a 30km run.  It has silenced false labor several times.  It has bathed my filthy children countless times.
Our bedroom has been the gathering place.  Where my family will pile into bed and watch movies together. 
We have marked up walls with ride-on toys, we have nicked up the floor just in the living we have done here. 

I have cried many, many tears in this house and will absolutely be shedding some tomorrow.

This house has seen us become a family of five.
This house has seen us become a family.

At the risk of seeming trivial, I write this post.
This year has had so much loss and heartbreak, and to be so hung up on the "loss" of this house seems melodramatic. 

I empathize so very much for all the homes lost to The Beast.
My heart aches still for the sudden and breathtaking destruction that was May 3.

I'm sure our new home will be more than enough to contain a lifetime's worth of memories, but in this moment and I am so sad to leave this place that has been a big part of my "growing up".