It is nearing 8 p.m., and our house, with the exception of the master bedroom and bar, is empty. It is quiet and barren. I am sitting here, enjoying the cool air after a brief shower, looking across the deck at my front gardens. I had a plan for years of how this area should look and show off the front of the house. In the last two years all our hard work, all five of us, has paid off. It is lovely; exactly as I envisioned it. The deck has become our outdoor living space each evening.
The back patio was a labor of love and hard work. It took an entire summer to lay the concrete cobble stone forms, paying for supplies as we went. Each payday brought on work for the next section, and all five of us labored over leveling and planning, and pouring 65 bags of sakrete! The water feature and surrounding landscape was a fall project. The back border gardens, a constant struggle to keep perfect have all grown back to natural brushline, and I like it better than the sculpted look I kept fighting to maintain.
The yard. The back yard has been a place of many great and joyous memories. The archery contests. The bocce ball and croquet tournaments, the time Coby used her play handcuffs to detain her brothers to the swing set. Even the lopsided, exhausted clothes line makes me smile. Then there are the volunteer red buds that are now hardy trees, and the Bradford Pear that is huge! I love my yard.
As I get up to move inside and write this blog, I wander the empty rooms of the main floor and am overwhelmed with the giggles of the past. Mark dancing each week, in his P.J.s to the theme music of the "CSI" episode of the week. I see Coby curled up on the old hand me down couch with the newest Harry Potter book. There is J.T. at two years old, middle of the night, standing in his window clapping everytime lightening cracked across a spring sky, telling me it is God's firecrackers.
We have packed up the majority of our belongings, and the moving truck is packed solid. The men and women from our church community that came to help us today were a true blessing. Their willingness reminds me of all the times the St. Peter Parish has been a cornerstone in our life in Fulton. Donnie Kromschoeder and his family stopped by the night we were finishing the patio, and helped us lay the last six forms. Joe Fague has helped us numerous times with electrical upgrades, and Lew Beatty saved our bacon whenlur new light fixture in the bathroom wouldn't work. Roger was our go-to guys for any fix-it project. The years we all participated in the Corpus Christi procession, and an altar was placed in our front and back yards. The number of St. Peter kids who have shared a meal with my kids in this house. The crew of Knights of Columbus members and their wives who came to load us out today; all are treasures my heart will always protect and hold.
When next I walk through the door into this house, I will virtually be a guest. That is a startling revelation. We have painted rooms, remodeled rooms, yanked carpet, laid wallpaper, changed out curtains, tied Christmas trees to window woodwork to avoid disaster, and shared many heartwarming memories. Coby learned not to slam solid core doors, Mark learned that dessert is part of supper, so when no supper, no dessert, and J. T. learned that "make me" was not a phrase to speak to his mother. We have had two dogs, three cats, three goldfish, and for a short time Nicole Kempker's hamster share our space. Deer mounts used to hang on the living room walls beside five compound bows and family pictures. Prom pictures were taken in mass in our yard, and the kids had friends over for smores, ghost stories, birthday parties, bachelor parties, and just old fashion 'bull" sessions.
My favorite memories will always be all of us crowded on a deck I had thought would be big enough and wasn't. beverage in hand, J.T. getting snarky and hilarious after a few Bud Lites, Coby keeping us all in line, Mark stirring the pot, and laughter so loud you could have felt the joy one county over. The hugs, the jokes, the tears, some sad; most happy, that given this old Ferrugia house life. I wanted people to come to know this as the Jacobsen place, and yet today I heard a gentleman refer to the Ferrugia's as he was moving an antique secretary down the steep stairs from the upper floor.
And so, tomorrow, we take off to move me to Kansas, and I will say good-bye to old Ferrugia house. I will say good-bye to a wonderful parish where I had the experience of growing in my faith and gaining some wonderful friends. Keith and I raised our three kids in one of God's greatest treasures: Fulton, Missouri.
