In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
That. That last line. A house brought me to my knees this past summer and I still struggling on how to work that last line into my life.
The backstory: I worked with this girl named Megan several years ago. We got to talking, as coworkers do and I spilled out my undying love for victorian homes. She gushed to me about how her grandma owned and lived in the most beautiful Victorian home and I had to come and see it some time. Well life happened and I never got the chance to see this house. Fast forward a couple of years later and Tommy and I were driving through a very quaint Kaysville neighborhood that our friends Mark and Holly recently moved to and low and behold there was the house of my dreams: Red brick victorian, with a turret, two levels and a beautiful yard. Fast forward to this past summer. Mark calls Tommy to let him know that the house I had pointed out a few years back was going to go on the market. I flipped, like literally flipped out. This was it. This was going to happen. I was going to make it happen at any cost. This was my dream house since I was a little girl. We called the name of the person that Mark gave us but never got a response.
I wondered if this was the house of the Grandma of my coworker Megan. After a quick call I found out that, yes, it was her Grandma’s house and she would see about setting up a time for us to see it. This was it! Everything was falling into place. It was, dare I say, serendipitous. I was supposed to raise my kids in this house.
After a couple of months, we were finally able to arrange a time to see the house. I gasped when we walked in. This staircase! This staircase! I could just see my girls all decked out in their prom dress waltzing down this staircase with their anxious dates at the bottom, being blown over when my beauties stepped down the stairs. I pictured the garland that I would drape up this staircase at Christmas time and the kids running down the stairs on Christmas morning. It was the most perfect staircase I think I have ever seen.
Then we moved on to the front room . Sadly I only took a picture of the fireplace and chandelier. But can you blame me. Again, picturing our stockings lined up across that mantel for Christmas. Mentally I had already moved into the place, hosted many parties and raised my children.
Then the dining room. Again the fireplace/mantel. I was weak in the knees at this point.
The rest of the tour of the house was a blur and I forgot to take many more pictures. I did get a couple of the woodwork around the door and the stained glass window. The woodwork, the woodwork, don’t even get me started on the woodwork.
This house, I am pretty sure is what my castle in heaven would look like. Well we toured the whole house and I was ready to buy that day. Then the bomb dropped, they wanted $400,000 for the house. Tommy and I went home and put a pencil to it. We figured we would have to put close to $100,000 the house to upgrade some the bathrooms, remodel the kitchen that was redone in about the 70s and it showed and then put rooms in the attic because there wouldn’t be enough rooms for all the kids, even sharing. Tommy was done $500,000 for a home that was only slightly bigger than our current home with a lot of work needing to be put into. I wasn’t swayed, this was it, this was meant to be. I was SUPPOSED TO LIVE IN THIS HOUSE!! We decided to offer them $300,000 with a letter gushing our love for the house, our love of its heritage, and trying to make it live up to the family that owned it before.
It didn’t work.
They decided to put the house on the market to see what kind of response they would get. After a few months. They got a full price offer. A FULL PRICE OFFER!! Who are these people?
I cried and screamed and cried and yelled and was down right grumpy to everyone in my life. This was supposed to be this was my dream and it was all supposed to fall into place. But it didn’t and I am still mourning the loss of this house. I am still trying to figure out “how to gracefully let it go.” I hope to get there some day but for now I still drive by the house when I am in Kaysville and gaze lovingly at the house and wonder if they people who bought it love it half as much as I do. I still picture my kids running out the front yard and into the garden. I can still smell what it would have smelled like on Christmas morning.
Hoping and praying that I can figure out this graceful thing.
