Summer Home

The view of the ocean was lovely this time of year. It was always splendid, but this time of the year was particularly breathtaking. At least, I think this is the loveliest time of the year.

The years have a tendency to blend together when you're old. This time last year could have been ten years ago or ten days ago. I rarely know the difference. When you've known this much time, it's hard to remember how much time things actually take.

First it was the Shums living here. A lively crew, loud and full of love, who helped to build the walls I now know. Then the Kraftsows, another loud and wild gang who's headstrong nature eventually took them far away from here. The Lyons came next, a proud group, somewhat detached but fiercely loyal and determined to bring honor to their names. The Misch came last, and stayed for what felt like forever. They were caring, bubbling with life, a refreshing relief from the others. A reminder of better day with kinder people.

Even they, too, would leave. It was a slow and painful process. The first handful of generations always came back. But the last was different. First the children left for school. The parents stayed behind, finally able to enjoy the peaceful views in perfect silence. The children were successful, the parents proud, but they never returned. Instead they left to seek the riches of other lands, and drifted farther and farther from the beautiful shores they use to call their summer home.

The parents learned to hate the silence. They longed for the years that the halls rang with joyous laughter and pitter patter of small feet. The father began to blame the mother, for he felt that it was her smothering nature that had driven them away. She retaliated by saying that he was being over critical, and that they would return once their place in the world was stable and not changing like the tide. He disagreed, and when the years passed without their return, he left as well.

This destroyed her. Depression ate her alive, as she became a shell of what she once was. She was right, though. The children did come back. But only to visit, and never for long. They could not bear to see what their mother had become. She died, here, between these four walls. No one found her body for weeks. When they did, they removed her, and the children decided to sell the property. But no one ever made an offered.

That's how I became the way I am. Cold, alone, wind whipping through my rafters and critters making nests in my walls. Struggling to remember if that instance I remember was last year, or last decade. I remember that my walls used to be filled with laughter. I remember that I was built with love. And I will always remember one clear, perfect memory: the way the first little girl looked up at me, smiling, exclaiming "Apa! Apa! Look! The windows of the house are smiling at me!"