Tear Down the House

My grandparents' home and farm flooded a few years ago. It didn't just flood; it permanently became a part of Bitter Lake. The lawn I grew up mowing and the trees I grew up climbing became swampy homes to catfish and beavers and seagulls. The basement with the cold cement floors and ziggy wallpaper and exercise equipment has been gone for years, filled with gravel in an attempt to stop the water and stop the mold. But in the end, no matter how many truck loads of rock and bags of sand that we hauled in as a barricade between the roots of our family farm and the unyielding plans of mother nature, my Grandpa Don and my Grandma Sharon had to move. One Easter weekend, kids and cousins and grandkids carried boxed memories carefully over a wooden plank with water on both sides from the front door to the backs of pick-ups. They were relocated to a different home across town. They replanted their garden and replanted themselves. Last week was the final demolition of their "lake" home, and even though they've been gone from that house for years, even though I've been gone for years, the pictures of the crumbling walls that housed so many Christmas dinners and kitchen table conversations still breaks my homesick heart.