LOST Chapter 18, Verse 4: Home Away From House

Space Travelers, Space Travelers! I hope you've been enjoying the updates with the LOST chapters from my graduation. Nothing wrong with a little walk down Nostalgia Lane right? Well continuing the stretch, here goes.

Countdown: 6 days 15 hour 58 minutes.

MEMORY #4: Home away from House

This memory may by somewhat unique to me, and not really representative of the college experience, but I feel that it some way it is a story which others may be able to relate to in some capacity.

In the winter of 2006, Missouri was hit really hard with two severe ice storms. In my college town, the ice was intense, but we did not lose power at any time. In my hometown of Springfield, however, the ice brought down many trees. It was declared a disaster area, and some parts of the town were without power in the cold for several weeks.

A casualty of the storm, was that I lost my home. The house I lived in my entire life, was a small house in an older neighborhood shaded in trees. Many of those trees were branded with bald spat where the local children would climb them, and scuff their bark with their sneakers.

I found out from my father that the house had been hit hard in the storm and that the roof/ceiling above my room had been destroyed along with the roof/ceiling above other parts of the house.

By time I had made it home, my father had relocated, and I was able to walk into the house. Without the power, the food in the refrigerator had spoiled and the smell had moved through the house. In addition to that the broken roof had let lots of water in the house. With the moisture, came mold and in many places the floor had become warped.

I salvaged some things from the house that my father had missed in his collections. What I picked up could barely fill a shoe box.

I left my house, and I realized I would never return to it. In the back yard was the plots where I had buried family pets. I would never be able to return to see them again. This may seem odd, but when growing up, my family duty was to take care of the animals. It was a special connection I had to the house.

I was greeted by friends when I returned. While my house was gone, I still had a home.

I don't believe many will experience this kind of thing. However I do think that many can relate to the feeling that the place where they grew up was no longer their home.

It's weird.

Also, I have three new videos complete! It's my election night adventure with Space Travelers Maia and Catherine into DC. I finished it a while ago, but I ran into problems uploading it to You Tube. The video was too long so I had to go back and edit the vLog into 3 parts. I'll be posting them here soon, but if you don't want to wait, just go to my You Tube Page (click the link in the sidebar -->) and watch them now.

Peace.