The House That’s Still Building Me and My Dad

Creative people. I’m a creator. I should be trying to sleep, but when I was catching up with my Huckleberry today, I said maybe I should write a post to process emotions that seem to bubble up when I’m singing The House That Built Me. Maybe I’ll fall asleep easier and stay asleep until it’s time to get up in the morning.

The House That Built Me has a lot of relatability with feeling the need to return to something familiar in order to get grounded, get back in touch with roots when I feel lost.

“You leave home, you move on, and you do the best you can

I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am.”

bridge, Miranda Lambert’s The House That Built Me

Chief Daddy still lives in my childhood home, so I’m not able to relate to showing up on the porch and asking a stranger if I can come in and walk around the house. I have been able to go back home anytime.

During the past two years, I’ve spent months at at a time living in my childhood bedroom. I stayed there while my mom was hospitalized and while I helped my dad settle all of the major tasks after she died, then I returned to North Carolina for work and only visited my dad on weekends. When he was hospitalized last year, I was already working from anywhere, so I was able to be there for my dad during his hospital stay, rehabilitation, and when he returned home.

Spending months in my childhood home felt like a gift of time with my dad as well as with my roots. Even with changes around the house, simply being in it allows memories to speak. I remembered writing in my journals/diaries and writing poems in my room. My journals caught every unedited outpouring of whatever happened in my day. Many of my poems were probably the equivalent of early Taylor Swift lyrics without music. My room was also where I practiced my violin or singing. Being back home helped me reignite my passion for both writing and music. More divinely timed steps on my path. The house is still building me.

And then there’s the realization that Chief Daddy is why my family still has my childhood home and why I’ve spent so much time there in the past two years.

I think about him living in a space full of four decades of memories, but my mom’s absence drags down even the happiest memories.

I think of my brothers and I doing the best we can to honor his request to stay in his own home. He’s been safest there instead of being a resident in an assisted living facility where he could have caught coronavirus before it became a pandemic in the United States.

I think about how my brothers and I keep him safe, but safe from what? A virus that can be deadly for someone his age and with his health conditions? Safe from death when some days Chief just seems to be going through motions instead of truly living? I feel most sad when I think about his grief.

And then it occurs to me that it’s inevitable – the house that’s still building me will change to past tense. The house that built me. And I feel sad.

And it’s not even about the house. It’s about the gift of time I’ve had with my dad and finally figuring out how to get along. It’s about everything I’ve come to cherish about him when only a few years ago we weren’t speaking to each other and I felt like I wouldn’t miss him when he’s gone.

I can’t tell you what day it was or what was going on, but one day not long after my mom died, Chief Daddy said, “I miss her, Eileen.” And as heartbreaking as that seems, it was also a milestone moment with my dad because he spoke to me from his heart. And for him to speak about his feelings was like the house was still building him too.

As much as I feel grateful for the time to create memories with my dad and build a bond that we were lacking before, sometimes it just sucks to get a glimpse of the future where that house will no longer be in our family. It’s just a little old house, but it’s been a reliable constant for forty-four years. And maybe all the time I’ve spent there has been the concrete pouring into my soul with new memories so I already remember who I am before I get lost again.

Luceat lux vestra.