my childhood home

water damage at my parents house, a photo by Digital Heather on Flickr.

January has been so weird.

We had some very unusual weather in the Arizona valley. For about a week it was colder here than where my husband is originally from in New York.

The cold weather broke our heater and also froze and burst a pipe in my parents attic. While our heater was super easy to repair, my parents house is another story.

The water damage caused the ceilings in the kitchen, dining room, and two bathrooms to cave in. The carpeting throughout the entire house was soaked.

I grew up in that house. In fact-- I lived there for 28 years. I went there the other day and it was completely gutted. It was a strange feeling. It was very cold inside. The floors were bare down to the cement but curtains still hung on windows. It seemed smaller. We spoke in echoes that I never heard before because I never once saw it empty. The house is three years older than me and my parents are the original owners.

Thankfully, the insurance company is taking care of everything but sadly, a lot of stuff was ruined. I know that in the end, the house will be lovely, but not the same. My mom actually gave me a rocking chair that she and my father received as a wedding present in 1968.

We took it last month when my husband and I were moving into our second home as a married couple. I felt bad taking it because I know how much she loves that chair. She used it to rock the three of us girls as babies and her offer to take it was very out of the blue. For over a month, I still felt funny taking the chair. I would pass it in the living room, loving the look of it but still feeling like it wasn't mine or I should have insisted that my mother keep it. When I saw first hand the damage at my childhood home, I was finally happy I accepted the chair. My mother kept in the kitchen for the last decade or so and it surely would have been ruined.