I think of all the places that we have lived, the hardest for me to say "Good Bye" to was Gilbert Road. Even now, ten years after we moved from there, I find myself wishing we were still in residence on "Swede Hill" True, it would have been way too much for two older people to take care of now, and not having children at home, with their old friends also grown up and gone, it would be so different.
We had ten wonderful years there; the ten years we had prayed for when we moved. Almost immediately falling into friends with the Bortons, Brewers and others, our social life was rich. Our children had wonderrful times in Scouts and 4H and beloved Rusty made his first appearence there, to Cece's delight. Playing in the orchards in summer and winter, surrouded by the majestic desert ridges of the Ahtanum Valley, with easy access to the Cascades, it was Heaven.
For me, the acreage was space for old trucks and rust and the barn was a haven for tinkering and artifact collection. Nellie fit right in and we had such fun chugging around "the big block" and up and down Occidental Road to school, and all the other spots. "Ladybug", our '63 Jeep wagon, and the other wrecks I drug home fit in.
The house was so primo. It was well refurbished and yet kept the 1921 flavor and charm. All this is in retrospect, and hindsight is self selective. Good times loom large and the bad times, and there were some, fade into the background. Life is never 100% one way or the other...good or bad.
When our last buglet, Becca, left for school, being on Gilbert Road became hollow for me. The children were growing up and leaving and times were changing, for all of us. Moving to a smaller place in town seemed sensible and so we did it. Now, looking back ten years, it was sensible but the grieving, for me, continues. I long to have Gilert Road back, but only with the kids little and untrammeled again. Yet, I cannot stop the wheel of life, time waits not for me.
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