In the weeks since I last posted we have accomplished so much. We have finished our new-to-us home to about 90% complete and moved in!
It was the last few days of moving-in preparations that sparked the question rolling around in my mind and heart... where is home? If you had asked me about 12 years ago I would have said my beloved Alaska is home. 10 years ago I ventured out into home being where the heart is and that being wherever the Air Force sent us. About seven months ago we packed up "home" in two trailers and hauled it from coast to coast. Since our arrival in Delaware it has been hard to truly pin down home, at least in physical sense. Some days I wondered if home was at the mini-storage unit that was crammed to the ceiling with boxes of all the earthly possessions I hold dear. Other days it was the current building of residence. Perhaps it was the temporary living facility where I was diligently making friends with the ladies who came to clean. Over the holidays home was located in someone else's house as a most generous family offered us their house while they were away.
As the weeks and months wore on, I realized the house my husband was working so hard to prepare for us was soon to be my home. There was supposed to be shouts of joy and delight at the thought of finally moving into somewhere to call my own but when the day came to unload the storage unit and begin filling the garage I found an unexpected lump in my throat and tears threatening to spill from my eyes. Yes, we had been looking forward to living in this house for so many months and and fought long and hard to buy it but something in me just didn't want to finalize the fact that I now live in Delaware and in this house that not too long ago was moldy, dirty, and in a sad state of disrepair.
I collected myself and began cleaning the residue left over from months of construction. I tried to see the bright side of the story and was truly beginning to feel an ebb in the strong current of work that had driven us for the past two months. Every time I came to the house, I would walk around and imagine myself living in it while trying to forget its condition when we bought it.
It was this intentional motivation that was driving me the day before we were to move in. It was a bright and sunny day. I had come to our new house in the morning for counter installation and then headed back to the home we were house-sitting to do school with the kids and, for the first time in a long time, indulge in a nap before coming back to our new home to finish up the final bit of cleaning left before I would put the house in the habitable category. I am not sure a nap was ever so wonderful! I woke with a renewed vigor and energy. I was even excited to pass this final hurdle and be ready to move in when Nate returned from his trip that evening.
As we pulled up the kids were excitedly talking about the new counters and couldn't wait to go and see them. I was still in the car collecting my cleaning supplies when all my hopes, dreams and shakily joyful anticipation were shattered. The words no one wants to hear came sharply through the garage, "Mommy! There is a leak!" My mind started to race and the cleaning supplies suddenly lost their importance as I numbly ran into the house. I was expecting some sort of a puddle but not the lake that greeted me as I walked into the main living area. There was water everywhere! It sounded something like a waterfall as it rushed out of the cabinets, onto the floor, under the island with the newly installed counter, across the living room in a wide swath and out of the house under the siding. A river was running down the stairs to the basement which was standing water and rain showers everywhere I looked. I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't believe it. I just couldn't be true! And this was to be my home. No! I couldn't be! Perhaps I could just walk away. The last months of hard work and effort, the tedious job of laying the lovely new floor which had just been completed less than a week prior, the painting, the sheet rocking, all sped through my mind in an instant. It seems the price we had paid had been enough. This was too much and surly there was no more left with which to pay - no energy, no time, to optimism. For me, it was all spent yet there I stood in utter disbelief looking at apparent devastation.
I began to run around telling the water it shouldn't be there; letting the house know that this choice of action was unacceptable. I dashed out into the "cliffs" of boxes in the garage and began begging them to produce towels. Any towels would do. What else was there to do? Nate was just taking off on his way home so I couldn't call him for advice.
I called my parents who, so kindly, had done much of the floor installation and had only left the day before. I needed someone above the age of nine who could still think straight to give me some idea of how to clean up the water. The mop was slow and tedious and barely dented the vast amount of water. I finally, with the help of my nine-year-old, got the shop vac running and was able to get the water up with much better success.
An hour and a half later, I figured what was done was done and I might as well proceed with the cleaning I had initially set out to do. It was with a dull ache in my heart that I once again set about to prepare this now flooded place to be my home. All that was new and wonderful was warped and wrinkled. I could see the floor boards curling in some areas and little ripples along the edges. Just that morning I had taken such care to vacuum it to a lovely, smooth shine. So much for taking such care of something that was now seemingly forever tainted.
It was about this time that Nate texted to say he had landed. He had no idea. I called and broke the news, instantly realizing that as much as I needed his encouragement, he would need mine. I wasn't sure where that encouragement might come from but it had better be there! This was our home, wet or dry! I knew we were not going to throw in the towel on all the hard work we had done and warped floors or not we were going to make this work. This was going to be home. Yes, say it again, this was going to be home. What kind of home? I was not sure but this was it.
How odd that twice in the week prior to this I had read Proverbs 23:4-5
4 Do not overwork to be rich; Because of your own understanding, cease! 5 Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven.
Yes, this house, this floor, all this hard work certainly had the potential to make itself wings and fly away! Rather float away in our case. I realized how much I had been staking on something physical. I was counting on this house to be my home. I was longing for something tangible to fulfill that home-maker longing in me. I was expecting stability and rest in an earthly structure. I couldn't see it at first but when all expectations literally floated away, I had to dock my boat somewhere and I found that this house did not have cleats big enough to hold me.
The next few days were a bit of a blur. Everything I did was mechanical. Everything seemed overshadowed by the flood. Water was now my enemy. I noticed every drip as if one drop of water would change the outcome of a floor that was soaked for possibly up to 4 hours in hot water. I avoided the basement with resolute determination. I replayed events and wished I could have been here when the leak began and saved us from this trouble.
As the clouds began to clear, we worked on finding something to laugh over, something to be thankful for. Oddly enough, I found a bit of relief in realizing that the floor was still useful, only one thing was missing. That one thing was its ability to tie me to it. Its ability to hold me tight to things of this world. Yes the floor had been truly lovely for the first few days of its "life" in our home but now it was where it should be... something useful but earthly and temporal - truly temporal!
I found myself realizing the true value of my kids, my husband, my family. That doesn't mean I was an angel as we cleaned and moved in but it does mean that my perspective was changing. Things that last were looking more valuable to me and things that don't last were loosing their false power. What a joy!
So, you are wondering how it all ultimately turned out? Well, the floors have improved over the past two weeks and the evidence of the flood has greatly diminished. They are still lovely and super useful - useful especially since they are not perfect so there is no point in trying to keep them that way! I may still be tempted to fret over them but only when I forget how they have been damaged will I be able to validate my typical temptation to keep them pristine for that is something they can never be again. This is our home and it is feeling more "Shannonish" as the days go by although I will never hold too tight! Who knows when another flood may come... we do have five kids...!
