The Basement Apartment

Tonight I spoke with Scott. He and his family live in the basement apartment where me and my family used to live. I had to talk to him about his church calling, but we ended up talking about the house. He and his family and me and my family both lived in a house built by my father.

When we sold my childhood home after my mother passed away, I took pictures of each empty room and each angle from inside and outside the house. Several years ago my mother put in a kitchen in the basement so my sister and her young family could live in my mom's house and save some money. After a stint in sales (my one and only sales position...) my family moved into the basement apartment.

The plan was to stay for a year or two then we would develop the land and build a house of our own. And due to the building regulations of our small hamlet, the year or two we planned on living in the basement apartment turned into six years.

When we moved in, we had one toddler. When we moved out, we had two more children living with us in the apartment. Looking back, I'm glad we had that experience to live so long under my mother's roof. Little did we know that only four years after we moved out, we'd be selling the family home and no Taylors would again live in the house my dad never saw completely finished.

The house looks different now; the new owners have treated the building with a deep respect that my family greatly appreciates. I love that house, and there are times when I see the structure, I get sad--not so much for the house, but for the people that no longer live there.