John and I went to take pictures of an old house today…Just a house by the side of the road… One hundred, maybe two hundred years old.

I almost felt like an intruder. I am looking at the old, half destroyed house, exposed to the elements; weeping with an open mouth of its doors and broken windows to every car passing by. This, once elegant and cozy home, it’s soul now lost…

I imagine a young family leaning over blueprints for their first house years before you or I were ever born. All of their dreams are going to become true in this home, sweet home. Entire extended family is here to help out – women are working around the clock on preparing meals for their hard working husbands. Kitchen is filled with hot air, bursting of different smells, and of course, it is full of kids running around between their mothers not sure what else they can do to start some trouble…Mothers are to busy and, to be honest, tired to pay any attention. Men are working. House is coming along nicely and everyone is anticipating the last nail hammered in, and a big celebration for this new born family, and something much bigger than that. Big guest house for all the family members that will be visiting on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and of course birthdays of little additions to the family. That is the picture of life.

I see a big anniversary party. Full table, loud conversations, jokes and family stories making this house alive, fulfilling its dreams and desires of being home, sweet home. I can see numerous lights, slow dancing in the middle of the living room with fire place breathing out hot air to warm up everyone. On the second floor in their little beds, children are tucked in by their nanny. Bedtime story carries through the second floor and fills up minds of restless kids. Happy family…

Father out in the barn trades his secrets to his son in exchange for a perfect smile and these precious minutes spent together. Life is not easy, goes Dad, but you will always have your family and this home to come back to. Mother is in the kitchen fixing dinner with her little daughter, who at this point is causing more trouble than helping, but how dear these minutes of togetherness…Child jumps up and down, her hair flying like million tiny butterflies all over the kitchen and the aroma of dinner makes her hungry and inpatient. Upon mom’s command, she runs to the barn shouting “Dinner, dinner” and retrieves the men of the household. Candles are on the table, mountain view, family dinner in peace at the end of a long day…

What happened with all of that? Who decided to leave this house behind with all of its memories, voices, and pictures on the walls? How dare you to dispose of this as unnecessary trouble, turning it into emptiness and loneliness?! This house, that has hosted so many family events, celebrations, births and deaths; this house that can tell you its story if you would just stop for a moment and let your imagination wander in the empty rooms, guest cottage, old barn…All of it so lively some time ago, and so lonely today…I take pictures of this house, so once it is gone with the wind, it will still exist – at least in my memory if nothing else. I take these pictures almost religiously, trying to retain the memory of the home that has been loved once…I want to preserve this house for a next generation – for my children, so they can learn that home is not just a house; it becomes our home with its own soul once all of us breathe life into it, make it unique, safeguard it and love it. My heart cries together with this old house – empty, lonely, bare house that once was someone’s dear home…