Reflections on a Home

Three years.

I watched as the new kitchen was installed when I was 10 weeks pregnant with Nadav.

6 weeks later, I lay  in the bedroom hoping he would be ok.

6 weeks later, my water broke on the bathroom floor.

4 days later, I sat on the balcony. Empty. Crying and chain smoking.

I spent a lot of time on that balcony crying and chain smoking.

The room that sat empty, waiting to be filled by him ,became a guest room with paintings of flower vases on the walls.

Then we mourned. And we waited. And the gaping wounds became scars.

I cooked meals, fantasizing about what it would be like to cook those same meals for my child.

I took long baths. I listened to podcasts. I recorded some of my own. I painted. I watched a lot of TV.

We built our careers. We held our marriage together through unspeakable pain.

I spent six months making a dent in the same place on the couch. Working. Crying. Worrying. Counting kicks. Watching a lot of Dr. Who and Masterchef.

We brought our baby girl home, healthy.

I sat in the corner of the living room begging for sleep.

I sat in the corner of her room, the room that was once empty, the room that was now full of her joyous being, watching her sleep.

I cooked her first meal in the kitchen I built when I carried her big brother.

I showed her the trees from the balcony where I used to chain smoke and cry.

I watched her crawl for the first time on this floor not 10 feet away from where my water broke.

I watched her stand for the first time, leaning on the walls covered with paintings made in the service of healing.

I watched her dance for the first time, with the sunlight streaming through these windows that I looked through for all of those months that I sat here, keeping her safely inside me.

This place, which has known more joy and more grief than I ever thought any place could contain.

This place, where I laughed and cried and cooked and hugged my husband.

Where we planted a tree on his first birthday.

Where we danced around the living room with her more times than I can count.

This place, where we thought we would live for a very long time.

This place that has a magical power: It releases grief and retains joy and light.

This place, that can no longer be our home, because it’s time to move on.

This place, which I entered lost, I inhabited wounded, and I leave – found.

This place where I came into my own.

Where we came into our own.

Where we became a family.

Our first true home. Her first home.

Tomorrow it will be emptied, waiting for another family to inhabit it.

I hope it gives them as much as it has given us.

I hope his tree grows big and tall – watching over it.

I hope we find another home that will harbor us and protect us like this one has.

That will empty out grief and retain joy and light.