The House that Built Me

My friend Melissa posted a blog about this song a few weeks ago and I loved the idea but didn't want to copy it. Then this week my cousin Debbie posted a link to this song on Facebook and so I felt compelled to write about it.

The House that Built Me - Miranda Lambert

I know they say you can’t go home again
I just had to come back one last time
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
But these handprints on the front steps are mine

Up those stairs in that little back bedroom
Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar
I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
My favorite dog is buried in the yard

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years
From Better Homes and Gardens magazine
Plans were drawn and concrete poured
Nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

This song speaks to me on so many levels. There are so many days that I want to just go home, crawl into my old bed in my old room and, to be honest, cry. I just want to go back in time before the world got so difficult, so real and so painful. The problem with doing that is that I wouldn't get the experience the immense joy that my life has brought me thus far either. I do feel so broken somedays and I really do think time at home would help with the healing.
Time on the farm where I grew up....where I could run in the green pasture fields (careful of course to miss the cow patties) and see the cows. Where I chased the cows over the culvert while my cousins sat under it to listen to the cows over their heads. Where I played for hours the old barn that my great grandfather built in the 1850's (maybe that's great, great grandpa??). Where I built a fort above the insul-block shed and kept treasures up there. The place where we'd go for hikes to the bush or the old railway tracks and build a campfire and cook hobo dinners or better yet, collect sap in the spring and make maple syrup. It was a place where hard work happened too. I spent hours (okay my brothers would argue this point as they did WAY more work then me!) unloading loads of hay and straw and in my teen years, when I wanted a car to drive, I worked in the barn, milking the cows or feeding the cows and calves. It was hard work and I know I didn't always appreciate it (or the early mornings after a tough night out with friends LOL!) but I taught me so much...most especially a deep respect for my parents, for agriculture, for the places where our food comes from.
I definately spent more hours indoors than out though...let's be honest. My room changed a few times while growing up...as mom and dad added more kids to our family. My favourite room, believe it or not, was not the basement refuge I had in my late teens but the room upstairs that I had for the greatest part of my childhood. It was here that I spent hours doing my friends hair (the same friend who I spent hours and hours walking and talking with down the second concession of Culross township). I listened to music and dreamt of the life I'd have when I grew up and became a mom. I did hours of homework sprawled across the bed my parents had had since they were married (let's not go there as to how many of us kids likely began there!!!) and I wrote poem after poem in that room about life, about boyfriends and about the sadness I sometimes felt. I spent time crying in this room...when my grandma died when I was 9, when my cousin Cindy was killed when I was 13 (my first experience with death of someone young) and for a great many months, when my boyfriend Bill died of leukemia in 1992. I also spent hours writing, even then, about my faith and I travelled a long journey in my teen years as I struggled with how to celebrate my love for God and balance it with my typical teen behaviour of drinking, partying and dating.
This home is also where my boys found so much love and compassion when I was in the hospital for so many weeks. It is a very special place, owned by very special people.
But it isn't the only home that I had then...not the only home I have now. I was pondering the words to this song on my way to work this morning and realized that I think there are many times that I think that I've needed to come home to God's house too. The house of God that I grew up with does strange things to me too...when I go back to Teeswater United I have such vivid memories of growing up in the church community, of learning about God and his amazing miracles. But more than that I think that I just need to go back to God sometimes...
I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Wow that is so true about my faith, about me in the last 18 months, about me now. I do feel broken and that I need to start healing and that God can help me find myself. I am not sure who I am anymore. I have changed so very much since I lost Cole. For the better I am sure but even if that is the case...it is still so very hard to find me. I know that God will help me find myself, He will touch me, make me feel Him...he'll give me that memory from the house that built me...his house.
I want so bad, this week in particular, to not feel so broken, so lost, so, even still, angry at the loss of my son. I want to not miss him each and every day, I want to feel whole again and not this broken self who doesn't understand where she fits in.
So I open myself up to God and his house...help me with the memories of the good times, of the signs of your love, fix this broken me and show me that this has purpose.
And yes, in case you are wondering...it has been a crappy week or so full of what ifs, memories and sadness. I miss Cole so very much and wish that a visit to the house that built me (the Teeswater one) would take away this pain. Maybe I just need some really big hugs from the folks at the house and the town that built me.

A Fabulous Fundraising Event

Friday May 28th marked the first (of what I hope is an annual) fundraising event in Cole and Cameron's honour. A lot of work went into the event and some AMAZING donations came in from local businesses. We were completely blown away by the size of our silent auction table...88 items donated plus donations to a kids raffle table.
I'll post pictures first before giving the grand total as it stands right now.






Our event had a Retro Wedding theme...just to add something unique....and we were able to borrow this retro cake from a friend who owns a cake shop. We set up a display of photos of Cameron and Cole and info on our charity, Mt. Sinai Fetal Therapy Program.



Instead of a bride and groom we put one of the sets of these willow tree twin figurines that we've been given.



And sticking with our retro wedding themed event....here I am with my friend Emily in our wedding dresses. Her's is only 1 week old (congrats Emily and Mark). Mine is almost 10 years old (and 4 kids and a TON of stress later). I was so impressed that it fit!



Zack, our 7 year old, decided that he wanted to raise some money too so he decided that if he could raise $600 he would cut off all his beautiful curls!!!

Well at 9:30 that night he had raised $750 so off came the curls. We had some people who were so moved by this gesture of Zack's (including our amazing DJ) that they kept donating and by the end of the weekend there was $900 in Zack's haircut fund! We are so very proud of our son!!!


Geoff told him that if he raised more than this amount he would let him shave his head!!! Zack LOVED it!


In the end our event, to date, has raised over $3600 and that does not include the online donations that continue to come in to Mt. Sinai in honour of our sons (if you wish to make an online donation click here and chose a card in honour of Cameron and Cole Tummers and it will be credited towards our fundraiser)

Thank you so much everyone for all the amazing support!!!