We live in a house that predates statehood. Arizona's statehood, that is. For all the trouble that owning an old home brings, I cannot even begin to describe its joys. I often reflect that I will lay my head on my pillow at night and look up at my ceiling and thank that powers that be that brought me to this home.
My house, in the middle of the street. |
We moved here when our son was still an infant, he learned to crawl here, drew on our walls here, laughed, played, sang... all of those precious early memories of him are here. While he is not always a fan on living in an old home, I do what I can. I counter his not being allowed to run in the house with impromptu hallway soccer games (that dad is not privy to). I challenge his distress that there is no grass to play on with the nearby park that we have. In the end, I am pretty sure it works out for him.
I listen to the walls after having guests over and can hear the imprint of happy times thundering in the horsehair plaster.
I can hear the the times I have loved, laughed, and cried with my husband since we moved in. The house has formed us.
When we moved in, many people asked if we had any ghosts. My reply was that I have not experienced any. Though for the first few years I would hear a little girl cry outdoors, but figured it very well could be the neighbor. and various nooks and crannies that this house has that were letting the sound in.
A friend, who claims to be susceptible to those things verified that the house itself is ghost free (which makes sense since it has only had five families live in it in all its history). He also mentioned that there was a little girl that was outside, but she was not tied to the house and was not a threat.
We are in the middle of some home repairs and fix-ups. And because of an increased outdoor presence one of our neighbors decided to stop by and introduce herself. It became immediately obvious that what she was more interested in was getting access to our property so she could run her metal detectors over it!
So, she came over with all of her accouterments and had at it. One of the more interesting finds, to me anyway, was this child's ring. It barely fits on the tip of my pinky, it is downright tiny.
An itty bitty teeny tiny little girls ring |
I have to admit, though, that when I saw this tiny ring nestled among the other findings. I wondered if it was the same little girl that I used to hear cry?
This sounds like the first chapter of a very, very good book.
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