It’s hard to believe that I wrote this post more than four years ago.  So much has happened since that day of writing.  My sister was away and I had traveled to Edmonton to stay with our mother while Jan was out of town.  Our mother lived close to one of us, my sister, for the last four years of her life and then she went to Heaven.  During those four years I visited as often as I could and it was different, getting on a plane for Edmonton instead of Vancouver.  The flight to Vancouver had become a regular event, often three or four times a year.  And then we moved our dear one to Edmonton, so, as she aged even more and her health quickly  slipped and her days wound down, she was close to one of us.  When my sister and her husband took a trip I too took a trip.  They often went south and I traveled west and a little bit north.  My first stop would be to the seniors home where our mother was living, to bundle her up and take her with me to that house on the hill, that I mention in the story below.  We would cozy up in that home and have our own little vacation.  I would cook for her and help her with her clothes and her shower and her “nightie” and we would chat and visit and remember and oh how I would love to have one of those visits again, in my sister’s house.  But that is not to be.  Not now!  I will see my mama again though, one day.

This house, sitting on a hill, just off the main drag, on a couple of acres,
is full of family.
The family isn’t actually here much anymore because they have their own homes filled with their own families. But the memories of when those people lived under this roof, are here. The rooms are empty of people but, just open the closets and the evidence of “those” years can be found. Wedding dresses wrapped carefully for the sake of remembering. A sweater, a shirt not important enough to live at the new address, but too special to toss aside.
There are book shelves filled with childhood pictures and Bibles
Story books and novels
An old trunk sits in one of the rooms
it is special not for it’s own sake but because of what lives inside. Memories of another lifetime. A mother, a grandmother, a Nano to be exact. Precious.
Along the hall and down the stairs is the place where the hive of activity buzzes.
Scrapbooks and picture albums
A sewing machine and piles of fabric.
There’s a comfy couch
a fireplace fills that room with warmth
An office a place of business
tables
work happens.
It goes without saying that the kitchen in this house is a special place. Just as in my own house, there is talk and sharing and cooking and washing and pretty things and love, here.
This is my sisters house and when I visit I settle in. The things in this house are not mine but they are symbols of life lived well. Welcoming!
It isn’t the gadgets and keepsakes that make it special but the peace and the knowing. The truth that the happenings enmeshed in the things mean something.
To those who live here and to those who don’t, but come here sometimes, often, not as often as they would like, this place holds sweet memories. Sad memories. Inside and out! pups and bikes, swings and gardens.
This is my sisters house and she has worked hard. often with her hands but more often with her heart. I know because I have worked too, often with my hands but more often with my heart, in my own house.
You see, we are family and family roots go deep. Distance and age and the mess of living life tangle us up and keep us doing what we do, but family is good.
My house is far away.
I am here now
With our mother who has lived a lifetime of happy and sad and hard work.
We learned from her
to do what we can to share what we can.
I am here and my sister is not. For now!
Our mother is here, with me in my sisters house.
This is home for us for these few days and we are comfortable and warm and remembering and working
with our hands
but more importantly
with our hearts.
God has given us passion, for living honestly, working, with hands and hearts.
listening carefully for His instructions as we rest in Him. In His Heart.

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children, (Psalm 103:17, ESV)