Closure

Today is a day of closure…literally.  Today my sister and I will close on the sale of my dad’s home.  It’s been just a little over a year since dad passed away. This will be the last thing we do to complete the division of his estate. Closure.

            The house we are selling is not our childhood home.  Mom and Dad sold that, and moved into this place in 2000.  We had teenage children by this time. So there is not the type of raw emotion of letting go of the place where we grew up. I never went to this home following a date, or a breakup, or after my final high school basketball game. This is not where I spent the summers of my college years, nor the place I put on my tuxedo on my wedding day. 

            Still, many memories were made at the home on Fortune Drive in Dacula, Georgia.  Christmases when Mom and Dad were still healthy.  Trips to visit when my family lived in the upper Midwest.  And then, this is where Mom spent her final days. She passed away peacefully in her sleep in a hospital bed in the family room.  And, of course, it’s where Dad lived until he could no longer walk, and had to move in with my sister and her husband.

            Yes, there are many memories there. And by the end of the day, it will belong to another family. I imagine more memories will be made in the future, just not for my family. 

            God has allowed us the privilege to live in relationship with each other.  He created us, “in His image,” which, in part, means that we have the ability to relate to others.  And He has called us to love one another. 

            Love is hard. Love can lead to a broken heart. But love is worth it.  Today, I am a bit sentimental as I remember my family. I am grateful for the legacy, and I pray that perhaps my own sons and granddaughters will one day look back with fondness at the legacy I have left. I pray, in the meantime, that I will finish well. And I pray the same for you.