Grieving a house

My parents are moving.  I'd been instructed to keep the news under wraps while they did their house hunting.  They didn't want to put their current house up for sale until they had another one in the works.  Living in the same house...and therefore neighborhood, ward and community for 34 years meant that news of their leaving was going to be met with surprise and dismay.  They didn't want to deal with that until they were ready.  But the new house has been bought.  The current house is getting ready to go on the market.  And the news has got out.

Which means it's all official.  And surprisingly....seeing as my parents have been talking about doing this for years now....I'm having a hard time with it.  Ridiculous, really.  They aren't leaving.  They aren't even really moving out of their town...just relocating a few miles down the road.  I don't even want to think about what this would be like if they were leaving the state.  No, my grief has to do with that house.  It's my childhood home.  We moved there when I was 4 and 1/2 years old from Houston, Texas.  My parents picked it out on a quick house hunting weekend trip after my Dad had been hired by an engineering firm in Salt Lake City.  Not knowing much about the area and not having a lot of time to really research it out, they figured they'd live in the house for a year or so while they decided where they really wanted to settle.  But they stayed.  For 34 years.  Because it turned out to be an ideal little area to raise a family in a community filled with wonderful people.  So that house turned into a home that is now filled with so many memories and so much love that I can hardly walk through the rooms today without crying.

(And to my parents...I am sorry if I am being overly sentimental about this.  The last thing I want to do is make this move harder for you than it already is.  I know that it is time to go and I know it is the right thing.  Your new home is beautiful and perfect and I am truly excited for you.  Really I am!  This grieving over the old home has caught me by surprise.  I, myself, haven't even lived in the house for 19 years.  I guess I was still more attached than I realized.)

My Mom has been doing massive amounts of de-junking.  My sisters and I get emails almost daily asking if we want this thing or that before it gets hauled to D.I.  A few weeks ago I was instructed to come pick up my wedding dress that has been stored in one of the downstairs closets with all my sisters' wedding dresses.  And though the actual dresses have been archived into special bags to keep them preserved, Lilian had a grand time trying on the veils.  Here she is admiring herself in the mirror wearing the same veil I wore 19 years ago when I was a bride.