my grandparents' house

when i was little, they had the longest driveway and biggest yard in the world. and one of the biggest houses, too.

i have pictures of myself playing with puppies in their driveway; i remember smelling the lilac bush walking around outside while staying far enough away from the old well that i wasn't supposed to touch.

at the back door was an old cast iron bell that i liked to ring when we went to visit. through the screen door was a heavy wooden door with windows that looked remarkably like the one justin and i have in the dining room. the furnace room was at the end of the entryway and the kitchen was to the left.

in the kitchen, i would pull a chair away from the table and take canned goods from the cabinets, pretending to grocery shop.

the canned goods without their cabinets.

i remember grandpa heating up his coffee in the microwave - he always makes instant coffee. he used white coffee cups, diner style, for as long as i can remember.

a cup with smoke stains from the fire.

in the living room was the fireplace, which i never remember being lit, but i spent a lot of time near it playing with lincoln logs and tinker toys, toy dishes and the old-fashioned egg beater that grandma let me play with.

once seth and i hid from grandma in the clothes racks in the laundry room. i remember we went in there, and then she called to us and we thought maybe we shouldn't have been in there, so we just hid. i remember us trying to hold our giggles in so we wouldn't be discovered.

grandma's bedroom was what had been the original living room, so it was large enough to hold a piano and a computer desk.

the computer.

the back of the piano.

upstairs were the bedrooms our dad and his brother and sister grew up in, filled with all kinds of treasures from our family's history. a cedar wardrobe that smelled fresh and wonderful when you opened the door. a metal dollhouse from the 1950s. a flintlock rifle. a powder horn passed down through generations. my great-grandma's singer sewing machine.

the sewing machine fell when the second floor collapsed. my cousin found it and sat it up here.

there are so many more memories that flood into my mind...sitting against a big olive green corduroy pillow with my care bears tv tray watching television, eating red hots and cheetos from their little orange tupperware cups. the smell of the cabinet that held all of the candy and goodies. sitting at the table eating ice cream cones and getting caught sticking my ice cream on the table after watching ryan do the same thing and hide it faster than i could. playing with the toy cars and tractors that my dad had played with. looking through the astronomy book with grandpa. sitting around in the living room talking. going upstairs just to explore.

it's hard to believe that the house is reduced to this:

i had to go look around last night and just see everything...or rather, what was left of everything. we got ready to go and i turned back and walked toward the lilac bush and i found a page from one of grandma's hymnals lying on the ground. i was shocked to read it, and brought it home to frame and hang on the wall.

praise Him, praise Him. yes indeed. i visited my grandparents last night. the fire that destroyed the house only destroyed things. my grandparents made it out and are alive and well. and God is still on the throne.