I believe the quote by Maya Angelo is much more fitting. “You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.”
The reason that I bring this up is that we have finally sold our home in Ohio. After four long years of house payments and house repairs, we have rid ourselves of a financial and worrisome albatross that has hug around our necks since we moved to Arizona. I won’t go into the details of the costs and heartache associated with this burden, but you can imagine what 48 additional house payments, electric bills, water bills, gas bills and insurance payments along the way cost.
We physically lived in this house for twelve years. Justin was five and Jason almost three when we moved into the house that we felt would keep us happy until the boys moved out. We still had four years left until Jason would graduate from high school and go somewhere to college, leaving Julia and I over 4,000 feet to get lost in.
Then, I came to the conclusion that my job was taking over my life. No one said it at the time, but I became a different person, one that was not the real me. An opportunity then was presented to me that would not only give my career a new infusion of life, but one that could make things better for the entire family. Certainly leaving Ohio was going to be difficult, but in the end it could create new opportunities for all of us.
I would have the opportunity to redesign an entire department. Julia would be able to live in a place that she hoped to retire to at some point. The boys would get to move to a place that would allow them to play baseball year around.
What happened was different. Less than a year after I start my new job, I find out I had cancer. Three days later, Julia finds out that her mother has cancer. The next day, Justin finds out he didn’t make the high school baseball team and six months after that, Jason decides to pass up high school baseball. As they say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”
On top of all that, the sale of the home just wouldn’t happen. Month after month and then year after year hundreds of people would look at the house and find things wrong with it. This was after we put new carpeting in half of the house, replaced the ceramic tile in the kitchen, put in granite counter tops and replaced the front porch so the new buyers wouldn’t have to put up with the large crack that we lived with the entire time we lived in the home. Then last year, we had to replace the roof because an electric motor in the attic stopped working and the shingles fried.
Then finally, someone went through the house and loved it. After an initial low ball offer, we made a counter that we felt was the lowest we could go and the deal was done. Our excitement to sell the house was only exceeded by their excitement to buy the house. It’s always nice to know that whoever is buying the house that holds so many memories will be taken care of.
Our house wasn’t the perfect house. When Julia and I started looking for a new house 20 years ago, the house on Filiz Lane would not have been considered. We loved the area but had to put everything on hold because we were having trouble selling our house. (Sounds like a continuing theme, doesn’t it?) Then after two years of having people traipse through our house at the most unwanted times, we stumbled upon a spec house that was worth a look. It was very different than our likes but it presented some opportunities.
After speaking with the builder, we found that he was just as desperate to sell as we were, so much that he was willing to buy our house if we couldn’t sell it. As luck would have it, the house sold within a month and we were off and running.
For me, the house has more memories than I can count, most of which center around the boys. When we moved, I supplied beer for my friends that helped. We usually don’t have beer in the house, but there was some left over in out mini refrigerator in the lower lever. Jason saw it and insisted that it was pop (or soda for you non-Midwesterners.) Even at almost three years old, Jason was already working on his stubbornness and would not believe me that it wasn’t pop. To teach him a little lesson, I opened one up and let him have a swig. The look on his face was worth a million dollars and he hasn’t had a beer since.
Before we had any furniture in the lower lever, the boys and I would toss a nerf-type football to each other. I would be the quarterback and they would be the receivers. Justin at five years old could make diving catches. Jason at three would let the ball hit him in the face and hope that he could catch it on the bounce. Little did I know that Jason would turn into the athlete that he became.
Christmas was always an event, one that was choreographed. Julia and I would make sure we got up early so we could get cleaned-up and ready to go. If the boys got up early, it was back to bed. I would then set up the video camera and capture every moment of the chaos. We still go back and watch those videos. Everything from Justin screaming “Wow!” without even knowing what he had to Jason complaining that “I hate Barney!” when we reused a Barney game box for one of his presents. (We have kept the box to this day to give Jason one Christmas present each year inside that box.)
The boys and I would spend hours throwing a baseball in the front yard. I would throw pop-ups to them that at the time seemed like 100 miles in the air to the boys. We played every sport in the world in the front yard that potential buyers complained about when they went through the house because there was no place to play.
Of course, there was the night that a bat got in the house and the boys and I hunted it down, BB gun in hand while Julia hid in the bathroom. I dare not even attempt to count the field mice that we captured in the house. And of course, there was the raccoon that took up residence in the attic after we moved out.
There was the night that Julia and I sat down with the boys and told them that we would be moving to Arizona. It was a tough conversation knowing that it would be Justin's senior year in high school and Ohio had been the only place any of us had ever lived. More than a few tears were shed that night, but it was all a part of moving on.
Julia and I raised a couple pretty good kids in that house, so it will always mean something to me. Yet, it will not be missed as we have new memories from our new home and will have even more in the future. More than the home, it was the people that lived and visited there that made it what it was. We tend to fall in love with places or things when, in reality, it all means little without the friends and family that come with them.
Someone once said, “Home is where the heart is.” It could not be any more true.
My labs continue to be amazing. Blood cells are a little low but the cancer count is non existent. I will continue to receive chemo every other week and will do my best in two months when I meet with Dr. Mikhael to talk him into letting me drop that to once every four weeks. Another two good blood tests should help!
By the way, I had a colonoscopy about a month ago to complete what I started 3 ½ years ago when I found out I had cancer. I originally went to the doctor to get a physical and get set up for my second colonoscopy. After I found out about the cancer, I put the colonoscopy on the back burner which was really stupid. Just because you have one cancer doesn't mean that you can't get another. Luckily all came out well this time (no pun intended.) It was a breeze. Other than the preparation and getting an IV, I had no knowledge or recollection of what went on and had no after effects. If you have been putting it off, please don't. Don't roll the dice like I did.
