The house that built me...

53 years ago today my Mom was getting ready to marry my Dad.

This is a picture from 1963 when they had just had their 4th blessing...they went on to have my sister Heather and then I completed the bunch in 1974.

Having 6 kids was a challenge that I can not imagine. 5 girls, 1 boy.

They were married 30 years almost to the day before they separated.

Today I am again looking back in an effort to move forward. I am listening to the house that built me by Miranda Lambert. I am thinking over and over about what my life would be like if my parents never divorced. If they were still together what would that be like? Can't even wrap my mind around it...they are such different people now.

Listening to this song, I started to cry. Have you heard it? My Dad and I built the porch for the front of our house. I had never been so proud. After my parents were divorced a few years my Mom bought another house and we moved. My Mom rented out "our" house that used to be a barrel factory before my parents bought it and lifted it and put a basement under it. After we were married Mr. Fish and I lived in that house for 4 years before moving to northwest Indiana. In front of that house was our Prom tree...every one of us had our picture on Prom day taken in front of that tree. There was a huge evergreen maybe 30 feet tall, we used to decorate it with Christmas lights. Our dog Buck is buried in the back yard.

When we moved, my Mom sold it and the people took down the porch, then the Prom tree, then the Christmas tree. It broke my heart. They had no right. Except they did because now it is their house.

I don't go back there. Never. I once drove by slow so the kids could look at it but it is so different there aren't many stories to tell. Except that was the house that built me. And they love those stories.

Won't take nothin' but a memory.