What Was, What Is, and What Could Have Been

Going home is a little like going back in time. I'm in Texas for my grandfather's funeral, and everything around me reminds me of life fifteen years ago. I grew up on a piece of land he bought about forty years ago, and each roll of the land and every tree speaks of an earlier point on my timeline.
Last night I visited the house I lived in from age eleven to nineteen, which is little more than a circa 1970's mobile home and a two story addition. Only ten years have passed since it was deserted, but it looks more like a century. Mobile homes aren't built to stand the test of time, but even the addition which has good bones, wears siding that was never painted. So one side is just rotting away, leaving six foot gaping holes. An entire forest of honey locust trees have sprung up, blocking the entrance to the front door. Everything sags. It is desolate.
It is especially hard to look at it right now, because my family is selling the land since it is too much work to care for. Even though my childhood home is a rotting carcass and remembering life there is painful, it is even more unbelievably heartbreaking to realize I can't come back to it.
I've just always counted on that land being there. I explored every square inch with my brother. I fished countless bream and bass out of the pond. My grandfather bought the land to leave to his children and grandchildren and great grand children, and he was at his best when he was working it. Not that he was good at it, he was too cheap to do anything right, but he was the happiest fiddling around with his pond, his garden and his tractor. Every spring he'd be up and at 'em, tilling his garden and planting onions. Along with the waves of new spring grass, tiny fragrant white flowers would spring up in between his peach trees. He loved to fill cups with them for my grandmother.
Everywhere I look reminds me of my past and my hopes for the future. My house is a crumbling bookmark to a painful childhood. I wanted to come back someday and rebuild, take my kids fishing, explore in the creek for old glass, and dredge up snakes and rabbits in the tall grass. I wanted to tell them stories of my grandfather who left them a legacy. I wanted to show them that they grow up in a loving home with committed parents, and that not all kids get that. I wanted them to see that they are blessed, and that their responsibility and gift is to build on what they've been given. It's hard to know that the land will be sold. It feels like being set back two generations. I will have no legacy in the land to give to my grandchildren. As I looked at my old house, I wept for the lost future; like weeping for unborn children. I can't describe my grief.
With my sisters and my friend by my side, I prayed for our family. That God would restore what had been stolen. That He would rebuild. That He would multiply our finances, our love and our compassion. That our coming out would be greater than our coming in.
I can't change my circumstances sometimes, but I can change my heart. It's a process, though. I'm still grieving my loss. But I can be thankful in all things, and there is always joy in between the tears.