Goodbye 24 Brooksdale Rd

Warning:  This might be really boring to a lot of you...so skip it if you'd like, they'll be something less emotional tomorrow!

I realize it was almost a year ago now that we actually walked out of our house for the last time and drove out of the city we called home for almost 10 years.  But tomorrow, it will be official.  Much to our chagrin, we have still owned 24 Brooksdale Rd since we left.  But praise the Lord, tomorrow we close on it.

From what our realtor has told us a young couple is buying it.  I have never met them.  It's strange to think about someone living in your house...though there's nothing in it that's "ours", still it's just strange.

I wasn't really blogging back when we moved so I haven't done much reminiscing here about our goodbyes or about our house.  But I thought this was an appropriate occasion to take a walk down memory lane.  I want to remember--but it's still fresh so the remembering is still bittersweet.  I don't want to relive those last days, ever.  But I do want to remember.  Even as I think about it now, my stomach turns.

Because in the years we lived there, we poured our lives out.  Our hearts out.  And then we left.  So part of our hearts are still there.  I've learned since then that moving on to the next place God calls you to is sweet.  You don't love the place and the people you left any less...your heart just expands to love something else, too.  Kind of like having kids...your heart just expands to love them as another one comes.

So much of our life and ministry there flowed out of that house.  People always say..."if these walls could talk"--if our walls could talk right now they'd probably be saying..."finally, some peace and quiet!"  When we moved in there were four of us that lived there...Travis and I upstairs, Lacey and Canela in the basement apartment.  By the time we left, there were seven.  We brought three baby girls home from the hospital through the doors of that sweet house in the time that we lived there.

Gracie's first time home

 It was cozy and warm.  (complete with a fireplace and a garage...two things I had always half jokingly dreamed about having in Boston) It was home.  For us...and for so many others who walked through our doors.  It was rarely empty.  There were always people coming in and out, stopping by, hanging out.  I loved it.  The way our house was set up, when you walked through our front doors you were basically standing in the middle of our living room.  So when you walked in, you were a part of us...you were family...but this is just not how it physically felt, but we felt it in our hearts as well.

We had an open door policy.  It was never locked except when we went to bed or when were weren't there.  When our doorbell rang we knew it was someone that didn't know us or had never been to our house.  Most people just came through the doors announcing their arrival.  Ellie, from the time she was tiny, would get so excited whenever anyone would walk through our doors.  When she learned to talk she would ask, who's coming over next Mommy??

Watching and waiting for our next visitor

There were literally hundreds of games played there.

Countless discipleship meetings.

Parties.  All the time.  Any excuse.  Christmas.  First fire.  A blizzard.  Labor Day.  Memorial Day.  

Birthdays (anyone's really).  Graduation celebrations (again, anyone's!)
Wedding showers.  Baby showers.

Tears shed.  Mine and lots of others.

Laughter...

Halls (well, hall, we just had one!) walked in the middle of the night, baby in arms.

Prayer meetings.  Some fiery ones.  Some sweet ones.

Faithgroups.  

Lots of Thanksgivings and one special Phillips family Christmas.

Chirstmas morning at 24 Brooksdale

Some of the friends that could be found in our house at any given moment!

Memories can be hard for me because I don't like change.  But without them, there's a void in my heart because I can't rejoice and be thankful for them.  So tonight I make myself walk the halls and rooms of our precious house again in my mind.

I can remember the last night our girls were there.  It was really late already because we had just come home from our going away party.  I remember Lacey fixing Ellie one last bowl of mac n cheese.  Their favorite.  They ate it together at least once a week.

I remember putting Gracie down in her crib in her room for the last time.

One of my hardest moments during the week we moved was loading my kids up to go to the airport with my sister, knowing that when I came back, I would begin to pack their room up...and they would never see it, play in it, sleep in it again.  Their room was tiny.  I felt like it was small when we just had Ellie in it, and then when Sarah Grace came along it somehow felt like it expanded.  Always enough room to play.  Or rock someone.  Or throw a fit.  Or discipline.  (I don't just remember the sweet stuff!)  Or dump an entire brand new box of Joe's O's all over the floor while I was meeting with someone in the other room!  

Our kitchen.  Hundreds of meals cooked...some days, especially the days when we ended up having a crowd for dinner, I felt like I lived in there.  But I loved it.  All the windows.  I don't know how many heart to hearts I had over those counters...gold bling in the granite and all!

A very typical scene!

Our backyard.  I could write a whole post about the memories we have from that precious plot of grass (or leaves or snow, depending on the season) in the middle of the city.  It was life to our souls more than we realize I think.  Ellie helping Lala plant her garden every summer--and then helped her pick and eat out of it.  Hours and hours on the "big toy" we got her when SG was born.  Running and jumping in the leaves.  "Sliding" down the snow covered stairs.  Celebrating...anything.  Engagement parties, going away parties, birthday parties, faithgroup parties, graduation parties, support raising parties, let's just all get together parties.  God was abundantly faithful to give us our yard.  And if you stood on one little corner of our deck you could see the city...in all it's glory.  The beautiful downtown skyline.

The "big toy"

I will always remember the HUGE project...that kind of became everyone's project of painting our house!  Trav decided to do it himself.  In other words, that we would all do it together!  We had some fun days/nights of painting...

While some were painting...others were planting.  I LOVED to plant flowers in my front beds every spring and fall.  My sweet friend Michelle and I would go to Lowe's together every Sept/Oct (for mums) and then again in May (for petunias).

I loved our front yard in the spring.  Travis re landscaped it soon after we moved into the house so we could plant flowers.  And our trees would bloom for two weeks every year.  They were blooming when we bought the house and moved in...

Our bathroom.  Oh how that mauve became like home to us.  Travis and Adam eventually redid it, but not until right before we moved.

LOTS of baths, lots of laughs

The new and improved!

Our office turned guest room when Ellie was born.  Lots of people have slept in that back room.  We used to call it the newlywed sweet because for some reason several couples ended up staying there right after their honeymoon (you know who you are!) for whatever reason.  Or missionaries that needed a place before they headed out to the nations.  Or friends that didn't want to drive home in the snow...or just wanted to stay just because.  Our families coming in to see new babies.  Speakers at our conferences.  A friend who needed a refuge for a night.  Those sheets have been washed a lot!  And I loved it!

I really could go on and on...but I will begin to end with this.

I will never forget Travis and I's last walk through the house together.  Empty house.  Kids were gone.  Stuff was gone.  It was time for us to go...no need to linger.  But I did, just for a moment as we opened the front door to leave, I turned around and looked back...and immediately an image flashed through my mind, a memory.  It was of my two sweet girls walking down the hall together hand in hand.  Sarah Grace for the first time, and Ellie for the hundredth time.  They were together.  Hand in hand.  Ellie helping Gracie.  I cry again remembering it.

Our beloved hallway...both girls learned to walk here.

It was a perfect house for us. 

Even with the terrible cupboard space in the kitchen and the tiny bedrooms.  

I loved that house. 

I was reminiscing about it with Ellie one day after we moved out here...

and these were her words to me...

yeah Mom, but you know, it's just walls.

And with that, perspective is gained.

The memories are sweet and will not be forgotten.

But what's left, is just walls.

So tomorrow, we will sell those walls and take another step 

deeper and more firmly into where we have been planted next.

Our destiny.

Tempe, Arizona.