Home

This past weekend my family and I went to Ruidoso, where I grew up.  My daughter drove past my mother's house and said it was gone.  She drove down the street thinking she missed it but it had been torn down.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go by or not but curiosity got the better of me so I drove by.  The pine tree my brother in law planted for my parents as an anniversary gift has grown tall, the driveway is still there but leads to nowhere, the apple trees full of apples and the neighbors homes are still there but the home is gone.

I had an eerie feeling as I looked upon the area that held so many memories for me.  The place I had my first date, learned to drive and had so many wonderful family celebrations was erased as if it had never been at all.  I picked some apples off the tree remembering the joy my mother took in having the fresh mountain grown apples in her front yard. I reflected on the memories of playing in the river behind the house and scattering my mother's ashes as the sun shone through the whispering pines.  It truly was a special place for my sisters and me but the house is now gone and only exists in our memory and yet, that is really where the memories have been all along.  The house did not hold the joy or the memories it was only a small structure where so many happy and sad things took place.  The memories will live on in us and in our children til we remember no more.