Goodbye Post

Goodbye Lindale,

Thank you for the 7 wonderful years you have shared with our family. We have enjoyed the small town feel and country lifestyle you have afforded us over these years. Where else could my sons have been able to talk so openly about guns at school without causing any alarm?

In this day of not allowing homemade treats for birthdays, your schools have welcomed them. We have been so happy with the school system here. The teachers are often former students themselves. It speaks volumes about a school district and a town in my opinion.

When we first moved to town there was only one grocery store. A couple years later, Walmart finally came to town. I have to say that while I have had more than a few surly clerk experiences at Walmart, every time I have gone in to shop at the original grocery store I have been greeted with a smile and treated with respect and kindness. We have had very few unpleasant experiences with anyone or anything here in town.

My sadness to leave you battles every day with my excitement to try and find a suitable replacement in our new town. And there are the things I never did that I always wanted to do. I never went to the Rose Festival or walked through the Azalea district while they were in bloom. I never went to First Monday Trade Days at Canton or visited Parrot Park. I guess when things are so close by you just always think there is time for all the things you want to do. Then quite suddenly your time is up and you lose your chance for an easy visit. Hopefully one day we can come back and do all of those things; perhaps on a trip back to see our local friends.

And so we are off to a new town, which won't feel like home and will never feel like the small town we are leaving. They say, "Change is good" but I'm not sure I agree with that; not just yet anyway.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”

Anatole France

Goodbye Robyn Lane,

What a wonderful street you have been for our family! We have enjoyed great neighbors in the Chambers, Hill, Rigsby, Campbell, Gehring and Currie families. We have made lifelong friends in these names and distance will not stop us from being close!

Whether we were walking the dogs, working in the yard, watching the kids play or just hanging out in the driveway, we have stayed out late talking and laughing and watching the kids play and grow. When we were putting in our front yard garden or the fence, so many stopped to chat and ask what we were planting and told us how they admired our work. You’ve thanked us for the eggs and helped us take care of our yard and chickens and watched over our things for us when we were gone. You’ve set a very high bar for neighbors as we move away!

It is my fondest wish that the family who moves in here after we leave will be as wonderful as you all are. Give them a chance! A long time ago when we lived in Germany I was grieving the fact that my dear friend and her wonderful family were moving away. Little did I know that a few days later another family would move into their apartment and I would have another friend who has meant the world to me for the many years since.

As we leave this quiet 1/3 mile looping street, I hope that the new neighborhood we have found will offer the same sense of belonging and family that you have. It has some pretty big shoes to fill! 

“What though the radiance which was once so bright

          Be now for ever taken from my sight,

              Though nothing can bring back the hour

          Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

              We will grieve not, rather find

              Strength in what remains behind;”

~William Wordsworth

Goodbye 212,

I remember the day we met. It was February 4, 2005. Late in the day we made our first visit to you after seeing a lot of other houses earlier in the day. We had become a little disheartened that what to us was a great deal of money, didn’t look like it would be enough to find a nice place here. You were right in our price range though and turned out to be perfect for us.

I remember a month later we were back with the key to the front door. The first thing I did was lay in the middle of the empty living room and make a carpet angel. We had bought our first home.

I remember the day in 2006, before Christmas when we learned that we had made the right decision to have the boys share a room from the beginning. We were going to add another family member to the household. She came home September 3, 2007 and you were complete.

I remember the failed backyard gardens and the mildly successful front yard ones. I remember planning out what trees we planted in your yard and putting in the fence for the chickens, then planning the front fence and fighting city hall for its completion.

I remember the storms that we weathered. The times we hunkered down in the bathroom, the hailstorm that resulted in your new roof, the snow fights in the front yard and the time Clay made a ginormous snowball and rolled it down the street.

I remember the fight against sugar ants coming in the kitchen if the tiniest morsel was left out, the fight against the mice that wanted the chicken feed, the fight against the high cost of heating, cooling and lighting your insides.

But most of all, I remember the years of love and laughter inside your walls and I will miss you. Thank you for being our home. 

“Where we love is home—

Home that our feet may leave,

But not our hearts.”

--Oliver Wendell Holmes