Home Sweet Home

The time has finally come for me and my siblings to clean-up and clear out our family home in Salem. Teral and his family have moved into a home in Payson, so the house is now vacant and we can clean it out to be sold. Dad and Mom lived in that house at 196 North 400 East for over 60 years, and Dad never wanted to throw anything away, so it was an overwhelming and daunting task, as well as an extremely emotional experience for us kids.

My dad considered himself a "collector," and he had some nice collections of Winchester rifles, knives, turquoise jewelry, pocket watches, baseball caps, dishes and glassware, and arrowheads. But he also bordered on being a "hoarder." We joked that he had enough scrap lumber in his back room and garage to build another garage, and enough nails, nuts & bolts, hand tools, wire, etc. to stock a hardware store. We spent three long days working hard to physically get everything sorted, boxed or bagged up, packed out, and hauled away. Sarah had come up and she and Heidi worked like men! Heidi kept her kids working too. We all pitched in, but the work horses were Charlie & Audra and their family. They took at least 30 truckloads to the dump, several loads to D.I., and 600 lbs. of metal to the scrap metal facility. One very tender and sweet moment was when we opened Suzy's cedar chest that Mom & Dad had filled with her clothes and some of her favorite things when she died nearly 44 years ago. We also cleaned out her toy chest/bench and I brought the bench back to Montana. When Charlie and David climbed into the rafters above the back room, they also found Suzy's bike, her doll bed, and more of her toys. So heartbreaking to think of how our parents grieved and agonized over what to do with those special reminders of Suzy. I am so grateful to think of them reunited with their sweet little daughter again.


I had a lot of anxiety about this experience leading up to it, but it was not as bad as I had worried it would be. I definitely rode an emotional rollercoaster, shedding nostalgic tears one minute and feeling angry and frustrated about Dad's piles and piles of "junk" the next; hearing their voices in my mind as I was reminded of experiences and feelings we had shared. In a way I felt like we experienced the deaths of Mom, Dad, and Suzy again -- touching their earthly possessions and revisiting those difficult feelings of loss and separation. I am so thankful for my parents and sibling, and for the life lived and lessons learned in that "custom built" home in Salem. I loved our house, and was always proud to call it "home." In the words of Miranda Lambert, it will always be "the house that built me."