Ode to 1317 Stamford Drive

Moving out of our house was hard work.  It was chaos to manage the kids and moving ourselves.  It rained on our moving day- like it ALWAYS does.  And, the tension was so thick on a couple of occasions you could have cut it with a knife.  Mike and I probably would have appreciated someone handing us some sparring gear and boxing gloves.  Sometimes all that "work" gets in the way of feeling the feelings in your throat.  It wasn't until I have the keys to our old house back that I felt the tinge of sadness that I might just miss this place a bit.  I thought in that moment of all the memories we had made there.  I thought of how safe I had felt when I spent months alone there with my children while Mike was deployed.  I thought of how happy we were.  I thought of our Thanksgivings and Christmases.  I thought of our walks and seeing my kids in a kayak for the first times in their lives.  I thought of seeing my kids spend time with their first real friends.  I thought of watching both my big kids ride their bikes down the street on two wheels.  Stamford Drive was good to us.  It kept us warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  It kept us safe and comfortable.  We grew our family there and brought our own full term miracle home as a family of five.  There was pain, lonliness, chaos, frustration and in moments of weakness- anger.  BUT- much more than these things- there was love.  The house was full of us- and when our stuff was gone and the walls were clean it was still hanging in the air.  Thank you Stamford Drive for the memories.  We know it was time to move on from you but for all the good and for helping us through the bad- we are grateful.