If you live in the US you may be observing Thanksgiving tomorrow. And, I hope like me, you have many blessings to be thankful for. But as much as I look forward to this year’s celebration, it’s going to be a poignant one. Because unless something changes, this will be the last Thanksgiving we spend in the home we’ve lived in since 1982.

Our youngest was still a toddler the summer we rode past this house on our bicycles and I made the declaration that “we’re going to live in that house someday.” Several months later we did. The events that led up to my dream coming true was almost a perfect storm, but it happened, and the tradition of Thanksgiving at our house began.

So here I am thirty seven Thanksgivings later, trying to come to terms with a tsunami of memories. Like how we put a heavy quilt over the living room entrance the first two years because while we somehow scraped up the mortgage payment each month, heating this big house was another story. We lived in a small den off the kitchen, cozy and content in our new environment.

Or that we celebrated all three girls high school and college graduations here, and this is the home where they spent the last night night before their wedding’s. This is the house that our seven grandkids call “Mia and Poppy’s house”, the one where we’ve held Easter egg hunts, played basketball in the driveway, and restaurant in the playhouse in the back yard. This has been our home, and safe haven, and the thought of leaving it is way more emotional that I ever imagined it would be.

Now the reality sets in. The Captain is retiring at the end of January and he’s ready to fulfill the goal we’ve had since we were dating of living on the water. Plus, this is a lot of house and yard to take care, and neither one of us wants to do it. We know where we’re going to move; it’s just a matter of selling this house and doing it.

Today I asked my husband if I was going to be happy moving to a lake community in a different state, and his response was “what’s not to be happy about?“ In my head I know that he’s right, but my heart is still struggling a bit.

So this Thanksgiving, when I set the table with my grandmother’s dishes and silverware, and I look over the faces of my family, I’m going to do my best not to dwell on what I’m losing by moving out of my home. Instead, I’m going to look towards the future and the new adventures still to come.

My memories will go with me wherever I go, and everyday I’ll be making new ones. A new family may move into this house but they will never replace the images in my mind of the way we were.

Until we read again…📚

Thanksgiving Blessings,

Dana L.❤️