If these walls could talk...

I took a little break from blogging over the past week and a half to deal with my grief, to refocus on my (mostly sick) family and to really dive in to my clinical rotation for school.

Esther's death really took a lot out of me. She was a big part of our household and she really was our best friend. On her last morning I did everything I could to keep her content and comfortable. Before our vet arrived I made her a cozy little nest in the living room. We circled around her. We talked to her and we loved her.

When we bought our house in 2007 I distinctly remember Geoff and I calling it a "starter home" and putting it on a 5 year plan. Here we are almost six years later and we have no intentions of moving anytime soon. Life has taken a few different directions than we would have ever anticipated at that point and our "starter home" has become our family home. I have no doubt that we will live here long enough for both of our kids to actually remember it as their first home.

Eventually we still want to move. We would like to live somewhere with a little more land. Geoff would like an outbuilding to serve as a bike workshop. I would like to have a goat and some chickens (technically we can have chickens here). We talk about our dream house frequently. We stay up late looking at houses for sale and dreaming, but what we don't talk about is how hard it will be to eventually leave our "starter home."

I didn't realize when I made up Esther's little nest in the living room that day, that I had unconsciously made it in almost the exact same spot that I hemorrhaged after Ella's birth. Esther took her last breath in almost the same spot that Ella took her first...and somehow it was right.

There are times when our living room can feel cave like. It affords us an incredible amount of privacy, yet it was never my favorite room of our house. It's funny how that has changed. Now when I think of our living room I think it is the room that holds the most stories for our house. It is definitely the room that has held the most laughter and tears (both happy and sad). It has been a place for birth and death in our family.

I wonder how many other people can say that about their homes? Since only about 1% of the population in the US has a home birth I am guessing not very many. For me it has made me very attached to my home. I find myself reflecting a lot on birth and death the last few weeks and I almost giggle to myself when I think "if these walls could talk..."