Christmas hellos... and goodbyes

hey there... i hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas, spent with loved ones. the holidays just don't seem right without them. for me, especially.

so much has happened this year in my family alone... i am just so thankful that my health is somewhat stable right now and i'm not in the hospital. i received more than my fair share of gifts this year: coming home to be with my family, blood transfusions from those i know (my dad and future brother-in-law) and those i don't, finding good doctors and answers to my ailments, having my brother and K move to Texas.

one present under the tree that was significantly poignant was from my mom and dad... it's pale pink, probably weighs about 5 lbs., is over 50 years old, and symbolizes over 27 years of memories.

it's a brick.

but not just any old brick. it's a brick from the house i grew up in, the house we moved into when i was just three. for all intents and purposes, my memories began in that house. i remember nothing prior to moving to Texas from Illinois, and rely only on stories from my parents and siblings of life before.

my memories of life in the house with the pink brick are mostly fond and warm. being the youngest of five, i saw all my siblings leave for college, one by one... and return home at some point or another when their lives took different paths. i remember playing with my cousin and sister during the summertime, eating Blue Bell Bullets by the pool and swimming all day. i remember tying a string to my loose tooth and the other end to a doorknob to try to yank it out (i think i wiggled it loose instead). i remember the clickety-clack of my mother's heels as she walked through the house. the smell of banana pancakes and sizzling bacon on saturday mornings. looking out the kitchen window above the sink and seeing the magnolia tree in bloom. picking camellias from the tree just outside.

i remember looking inside my mother's cedar closet with rapt curiosity at all her off-season clothes, fur coats and teeny tiny bead-encrusted heels from the Philippines. i remember playing with my Barbies and making them their own dream house out of discarded bottle caps and creamer tubs and cardboard boxes. i remember having my grandparents stay with us and getting to know them, if only for a short while. i remember after they left to return to the Philippines, having appendicitis and my own dad (a GP!) not believing me. i also remember the huge white teddy bear he gave me in his guilt. :)

i remember Thanksgivings and Christmases and Easters, when the house was warm and filled with family and friends and food. i remember practicing my violin in the living room and having the cat sleep in its case while i played. i remember Heidi, our beloved German shepherd/Chow mix, and how she would take something you gave her, and politely take it to her stash behind the couch in the sunroom. i remember watching TV with my dad at night when i was little, and pretending to be asleep so he would carry me to bed.

i remember a lot of things about that house. it's no longer there–it was torn down almost a month ago. what's left is some dirt, a huge clearing where the house once stood, and a pile of pink bricks.

i found an Irish proverb which says: "Bricks and mortar make a house, but the laughter of children makes a home."

i cried when i opened my brick, which included some photos of me in or around the house. i can't in all honesty say that i ever loved the house with the pink brick, but rather the home it came to be.