The Loss of a Dream

So news from parents came today and it is looking very much like they are going to sell their house. Now you may be saying big deal and I can see where you might be coming from but to me this was no ordinary house. Without tying into all the emotional aspects of why this is killing me I will start with this, I have never seen a house or yard that I would rather live in than the house I grew up in. My parents bought the house when I was 4 so I do not remember any house before it with any clarity. Every moment of my growing up was spent in that house and it has become a member of the family. 2.6 acres in Napa California is not something you can just find and when my parents happened upon it I recall them saying it was their dream home. When we moved in my Mother exclaimed that we were home now and she would never move again. I believed her. I never for a minute thought that there would ever be a time when my parents might live somewhere else. I thought that this is where they would die and then I would buy my brothers out and live there with my children. I did realize that the last aspect of that was a dream and would probally not be possible but I had hoped I would have a lot of time to work it out. I plan to get married at this house a year from now and while the sale will not make my parents have to move until after the wedding the reality is that my wedding will be the last memory created at the place where all of them start. In some ways I see it as poetic that it will make the wedding even more of beginning a new life and creating a new place that will be home to Brad and I, but the other part of me is not ready to let go. I suppose what I didn't say is that when my parents move out a bulldozer will come and knock down my parents house and replace the house with a community instead. I will never be able to show my children the house I grew up in nor will they have the pleasure of playing freely in Grandma and Grandpa's big back yard. I also know that I am being silly crying over a piece of land but that home is a piece of me and helped to mold me into who I am. I can not imagine any other place feeling more like home than that one did. There is another side to this I haven't stated yet, I am worried that if my parents sell the house they will have nothing left to do. Their days currently are spent remodeling the house to make it better for them. This is really the only exercise my Father gets and I worry about his health if he doesn't have that anymore. I guess what it all comes down to is that I am scared because I never picture a future without that home being apart of it. So if on my wedding day you see me crying more than the average bride know I am closing a door to much more of my past life than I ever anticipated and it will be a very hard day of letting go.