Crying is a good thing. A great thing, even. A cleanser of emotions and a releaser of stored up grief. Not to mention a legitimate and legal reason to eat chocolate after the tears have passed.
Yesterday, we spent several hours in Smithfield, cleaning and packing up some remaining oddments at our old house. I felt a little strange when we first walked back into the empty, echo filled rooms but I didn't really feeling teary. Not then.
I worked, and Steve worked, and Sarah worked. We scrubbed the tubs and toilets, vacuumed, polished the wood floors, mopped the linoleum, cleaned the baseboards and just generally neatened stuff up.
Sarah and I made a Walmart run to purchase a few necessities for the house like towel racks and a shower curtain. As we were shopping, we joked that if we just stayed in Walmart long enough, Steve would have all the cleaning done by the time we returned.
Sigh. It didn't work. There was still plenty to be done when we returned.
By the time the three of us had finished up the last little bit of stuff, it was almost 7 pm and we still had to get dinner and drive three hours home. I was exhausted beyond words. And filled to the brim with memories. And filled up to the edges of my heart with thoughts of the five years of Smith life that had been lived within those walls.
My last job in the house was to wipe down the kitchen counters and then polish up the kitchen sink and all the fixtures. The more I polished and scrubbed, the more the memories surrounded me. So many meals served in that kitchen, so much joyous laughter in the walls around the table. It suddenly seemed impossible to me that the final goodbye had come and I would never again live in that beloved place.
Steve was still upstairs finishing up some tasks and Sarah was waiting with Snowy out in the van.
I went outside into the cool, cleansing air, stared out at the deserted yard inhabited soley by memories and I cried. And cried. And cried.
I remembered the traveling musicians and missionaries to Africa we'd had over to eat. I thought about over 150 people from church we'd entertained at various functions over the years.
I remembered the family meals that would somehow end up with someone grabbing the dictionary to settle a word argument.
I looked at memory pictures like these.
I remembered church board dinners, and birthday parties, and Nathan's High School graduation party. I looked back at all the times that we (and our friends) had played badminton in the back yard.
I remembered how my kids had swung on the swing set and I thought happily about the way Snowy had been the reigning Canine King of his own fenced-in back yard for five years.
I remembered how my kids had swung on the swing set and I thought happily about the way Snowy had been the reigning Canine King of his own fenced-in back yard for five years.
A lot of memories. Memories of the place where Nathan and Sarah both grew into the wondrous people they are right now. Those walls hold the chapters of their childhood that we can never again recapture.
I looked at the basketball hoop near the curb and thought of all the times Nathan had gone out there late at night to blow off steam and shoot a few hoops. I remembered the times I had had gone out there to play with him and how he had said such encouraging things to me ("Mom, you are a natural at this") while I flailed and fumbled and created comic relief for the bemused birds and squirrels.
I looked at the street where Sarah, full of triumph and victory, had finally learned how to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time; I remembered the victorious expression that shone on her face when she did it. She had conquered cancer. She had conquered bike riding. She is a conquerer beyond words, beyond a doubt.
I looked at another street and remembered the hundreds of walks Steve and I had taken around the neighborhood, sometimes burdened down and overwhelmed by the challenges of ministry, sometimes giggling hysterically over some funny story.
I remembered Thanksgiving Dinners and Christmas tree decorating, and the way Nathan's baritone voice rang through the house one particular night when he was singing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" while doing the dishes.
I remembered standing at the top of the stairs and listening to Steve and Sarah's voices downstairs as they ate breakfast together and the indescribably contented feeling the sound of their laughter brought to my heart.
I remembered Snowy (AKA our second doorbell) keeping watching on the neighborhood from the fourth stair, a place which he had scientifically selected because he could see out the front windows from there.
I remembered shouts of laughter and tears of deepest sorrow. I remembered the joyous hellos we said when we arrived at Smithfield and I contemplated the fact that the book of goodbyes had been written.
It was a good day.
A good cry.
A good good-bye.
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