My parents' three-bedroom, one-bath home for our family of seven was sold earlier last year to investors. We moved there in 1972 from a long trail of renting shotgun apartments. My father died unexpectedly in 1980, leaving my mother and three children in the home. The remaining children left, leaving Mama who eventually begins her battle with Alzheimer's disease. Mama died in 2014
As young adults, we were eager to leave our childhood home, to build our own place called home. As long as the home of our childhood remains in the family, we always have a home to return to. We go back home for the holidays or send our children back home for the summer. There are days when we need respite from the responsibilities of adulting, so we just go home to sip a cold beverage, to see a parent's warm smile, to sit in the old chair with the worn cushions.
When that home is sold, there is no place for you or your children to return. The grandchildren have no place to envision you as a child. You have a childhood home no more.
