“A Love Letter to Your Grandparents’ Old Farm House” by Amy Le Ann Richardson

The window beside the rusty front door was haphazardly covered with plywood. We waded through knee high grass to peek inside at scattered trash and discarded heroin needles noting a long list of chores ahead of us. I looked at your profile and wondered if you remembered when we met. That one night I made a bad decision, but you turned out to be a good guy?

You remember how your car door didn’t work, so you made a joke about kidnapping me and taking me to that remote forest?

You remember the walk in the woods with almond butter and cherry jelly sandwiches, looking at moss and wildflowers?

You remember how we laughed later at that little sandwich shop on the side of the road?

You remember the moment we fell in love when it was the last thing either of us wanted?

Now we stood there in front of your grandparents’ house. Our house. Two kids and a cross-country move later. Sheetrock lay in busted piles around the edges of the living room where someone had yanked out the copper wiring. That would be expensive to replace.

When I was ten, I wanted to live beneath a tree in our backyard where I spent most of my time reading and drawing and making up stories in my journal.

When I was ten, I thought life was that simple.

Now, I wondered if living under a tree might be easier than fixing up this mess. And for a moment I indulged my daydream of long-term camping, but then remembered that time our tent flooded in an unexpected thunderstorm ten hours from home with two young kids and a big mess, and remembered why I was lucky to have a house to repair.

We continued quietly making our own assessments, wandering in and out of rooms. Making a list that seemed endless. As I looked around, I could envision your grandmother rocking by the window where there were scars on the hardwood floor from years of wear.

I thought about her watching for gossip going on, the neighbors coming and going in the holler before getting up to cook dinner. Or picking up the phone to call up the road and relay what she’d seen.

I thought about that generation of women tethered to their homes looking out at the world and telling stories to spice up their lives.

I could also see our kids playing there, and future Christmas trees, and brightly painted walls filled with art. Taking the dingy air of an abandoned drug house and flipping it back into a home like it once was. Flipping it into a better home, a home filled with pies and stories, love, acceptance, and support. A The kind of home you had always wanted. The kind of home where we could raise our spirited children.

It would hold a new generation.

A generation of powerful women, and women like us change the world.

We light fires. We raise daughters who expect more from their fathers.

Who expect more from their peers. Who expect more from us.

We raise sons to lift others up, to step aside for their sisters, to hear every voice like it matters just as much as theirs because they do.

We walked around outside, the original wooden siding peeling revealing decades of neglect. But a few days with a scraper peeling back chips of old paint jobs, and a new coat of glossy color would make all the difference. The brick flower bed out front was barren and cracked, but I could just see it lit up with snapdragons and Echinacea, herbs for my kitchen, and Egyptian walking onions. Just as I could see gardens in the overgrown fields and the walks we’d take up the hollow in the evenings after dinner.

This house would sing a new song.

A new song that echoes through the hills declaring love for generations of forgotten sacrifice.

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