Then and Now

As mentioned on Twitter, yesterday when I took off for the funeral and to visit my grandfather, and then my cousin, sister, and I went by the old house to see what it looked like before they tear it down. Ironically enough (and not planned, mind you), it was the exact 1 year anniversary of when we left that place. July 28, 2008 is the day we packed up the rest of our belongings and drove off.

Dad has been back since, but I’d never been back until yesterday. There were a couple of times I wanted to, but could never muster up the gumption to actually go.

The yard was pretty desolate. Considering the amount of plants and flowers we had, the way it is now looks entirely foreign to me. There is insane overgrowth where there were once paths and cut grass that we’d sit out on. The back yard itself is just a mad jungle.

The front door was deadbolted, so we made our way to the back door and found our way inside. The smell of mold and……I don’t even know what else, was pretty overpowering. We all had to hold our noses as we walked through, using our other hand to try to navigate through the mass of spiderwebs. My cousin Steph let me take some pictures with her cellphone, because we were all just in shock at how bad things were. I cannot believe that just a year ago…my father and I were living in such horrible conditions, and for so long. I told Steph that this is what I imagine a house in a third world country to look like. I won’t even get into how the kitchen floor looked like it was starting to turn green with mold 😡

Steph couldn’t believe how bad things actually were either, but I told her that when we were living here and had all of our belongings here, it looked much different. I guess the energy of the home would have been different too. We coped and patched things as best we could while we were there. Now that there is no one there to tend it, it just turned dark and gross.

The comparison from that house to the house we bought is unimaginable. I am actually grateful that I had the opportunity to go through something like that. To not only live in filthy conditions but to also move on to something normal, and be able to leave behind so much clutter and junk (and I don’t just mean physical stuff either).

The next two months of staying with family to recuperate are much of a blur. But I can’t forget the kindness my Aunt showed us while we stayed there, nor the good things I enjoyed about living there (the sunrises were AMAZING).

I’ll post pictures tomorrow (I left them at work). But even then they won’t be able to describe how things really looked.