14 Years

That house saw the pink camera slowly change to a red two door compact car. 

It saw license plates from many different states. 

It saw the dirty souls of our feet as we walked with haste across the threshold. 

That house held more tears than years, soaking and dripping through the floorboard and as the cracks in the walls grew the inches we were told to measure up to grew.

We tracked mud through the house as the memories stained the carpet. 

I carved moments into the walls hoping they wouldn't leave and yet after years they fade with the color of the outdated books mom uses as decoration. 

The chickens in the kitchen came and went but somehow always stayed. 

I moved rooms and my heart moved in me. 

The grout in the bathroom is molding like the stale bread in the pantry. But if you knew that house well enough, you'd know the bread didn't last long enough to get stale in the first place. 

The animals came and went but we always managed to have at least two dogs and a cat who spent more time outside than in, but who peed more times inside than out. 

The friends faded but the momentous have a way of hanging around in the corner of closets and on dusty bookshelves. 

I wrote and read. Spencer studied and cooked. Skyler rehearsed and rehearsed. Tucker came and went. Tanner was in the back yard or gone. Dad worked and slept. And mom loved and lived. 

14 years holds memories, childhoods, lives, loves. 

14 years holds the tears and fears, fights and nights. 

14 years holds laughter and jokes, sunny mornings full of birds chirping.

14 years holds mornings waking up to: "Rise and shine for the light has come! Isaiah 60:1" 

14 years holds regrets and lessons learned.

14 years holds coming to Christ again and again in front of the fireplace for me, and everywhere else for the rest of my family. 

14 years disintegrates walls and the foundation and replaces them with our memories. Our memories hold that house together. 

14 years holds too much to let go to in a poem, as if moving is so extraordinarily compelling to demand we let go at all. 

14 years holds the Anderson's longest home. The Anderson's longest home holds 14 years full of living.