Be so vewy careful what you ask for. . .

Probably (don't you hope) a last update on my old house. I should not have used that title about a home where buffalo roamed... My old house couldn't have been much worse if that had been the case.

A cautionary tale. A house alone in the countryside, even a very usually kind community, is not safe. I do not have to stew and fret about the stuff I left behind any more. I had no idea that people did this kind of thing to another person.

As you walk, the glass from the windows crunches... I had worn canvas go-walks so I just couldn't maneuver without fearing for my feet! It smells really weird/bad. It is much worse than I was thinking... I am glad I finally worked through my inexplicable paralysis of the spirit to get my can up there... 

They had hacked into the air conditioner and the basement walls and anywhere they could find copper pipe or wire. 

Each room seemed worse than the first... But I will spare ya the pictures... My first search was for my gramma's big picture of her in 1902 @ 3 years old...  sure to be hanging above the ... ruined- baby grand... She was gone. So was my grandfather's huge painting his mother commissioned for his 12th birthday before she passed away after a runaway a buggy wreck... Finally about a foot deep I heard my auctioneer friend whoop... "I think I found her!"

Hi Gramma! Are you not the cutest li'l bug in Indiana history? I just have to smile... I used to tease her about this picture. She was less than five foot tall all her life. I would say... "See those black socks? Oh, wait! Those are the chair legs... Those little bitty feet are barely peeking out from the hem of your dress... And you were as tall there as you ever grew right?" We used to just die out laughing....

My grandfather was gone, but Gramma came home with me. 

Years ago I wrote a little sonnet about this grandmother's empty house the night she died... I revised it here a bit for me and this odd kind of total loss... And everybody should know how very glad am I that nobody was hurt, nobody...

Requiem for my Home

An old, beloved farmhouse - dark tonight.

Inside- it once held lovely, cherished dreams.

Our hearts know more than windows let out light

And ache in sorrow's darkness, so it seems.

A bit of life, a flash of time lies mangled on the floor.

Emotions cannot judge who's most to blame.

But long ago we left with unclosed door

We must have known paths couldn't stay the same.

The eye of mind is strong, hearts stronger still.

What vandals wrought will soon be in the past.

The truest gifts to children is their will...

To hum the tunes of things that truly last,

I think I hear a bit of joys I choose,

For what the heart has owned, it cannot lose.

North House (1976-2019)

Whimsy and Hugs!