Marchmont: The Next Generation

Talked with Cole for a little while today; he was at the Marchmont house, Dad's old home where Kim and I grew up, doing some work as he prepares it to be the home for the next generation. He and Christy and Oliver are still hoping to move in there by the end of the month or very early next month, which is great news; that house so much needs the sound of joy and life and happiness, as I had commented a couple of weeks ago on this very site. Today Cole was replacing the carpeting in the den, doing some touchup painting, etc. It sounds like he and Christy have done a lot to brighten up the room, and I'm eager to see it.

As Cole was mentioning a couple of different rooms in the house, I had a moment of epiphany. I can make one statement about the Marchmont house that I can't make about any other place where I have lived: I truly believe that there is not a single square inch of that house that doesn't stir some specific memory and have some sort of a story to go with it. It was only a thousand square foot home when Kim and I grew up there; Mom and Dad added five hundred more square feet to it later on. I came to know every room, every nook, every corner, every closet, every counter niche... I know that home the same way one knows a favorite album that has been replayed countless times.

I'm eager for Cole and Christy to change things as they make it their own home for another generation. It was never a museum when Mom and Dad and Kim and I lived there, and it shouldn't be one now. It was a lively, dynamic, constantly changing home, and it will continue to be so for many years to come--and I guess I'll be the old uncle who's full of stories about the good old days...