Home ownership had always been the plan, but it was an experience I had when we were living in a little apartment that really lit the fuse.  Our three girls were little.  The youngest had just come along.  It was the beginning of the Disney princess fad, and those who know what I am talking about know exactly what that meant: dresses and crowns, DVDs and catchy songs the kids would belt out at random.  It was a happy time.  A busy time.  My wife and I were doing are very best to make things happen, but our timetable was not God’s.  Still, we worked overtime and took on second and third jobs.  Our apartment was next to the common exit: a door to the outside used by the occupants of six units, two upstairs, two downstairs, two on an even lower level.  All day long that door would slam open then slam shut.  What is more, it was right by the girls’ bedroom.  One night, when we were trying to get the girls to go to bed, the door slammed open and shut and woke up the kids.  It was then that I realized that there was only about a half of a foot between where my girls slept and the outside world.  The juxtaposition was unnerving.  I thought of their safety.  I thought of their security.  I as a father had to put more distance between my kids and the world.  It was a sobering realization.  To be sure, the event made me feel inadequate.  I wasn’t doing enough.  We needed a place of our own – something that felt more fully ours, not shared. 

We eventually moved out of the apartment and into a rental house where the girls shared two bedrooms.  It was a step in the right direction, and for five more years, we continued to save.  I found more work.  My wife babysat.  Finally, after so much sacrifice, we managed to purchase our own home. 

We were there for about seven years until we outgrew it and were able to buy something bigger.  My girls were little in that first house.  The home we live in now is their teenage house.  Just before we moved, I realized this affecting truth and wondered all the same about the shifting role that is fatherhood: the holding on and the letting go. 

Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. 

2814 Christopher Court 

The girls had on their 

puffy coats when we first brought 

them to the tan split-level that 

sat in the cul-de-sac of our dreams. 

The numbers were right, and so was the school, 

we had thought, but it was the backyard tree 

with the limbs the girls could reach 

that did it for me. 

This was our house, our home. 

And now, seven years later, I sit, 

grayer and surrounded by boxes, and think of 

Henry le Puss and Pablo Picatso 

buried under the rose bush 

and of the new house, a new home, 

not far but distant, still 

and wonder about my life and 

the bittersweet passage of time 

as my eldest comes in fitted 

perfectly in her mother’s skirt 

to ask me if she could spend 

Halloween with a friend, 

not us. 

Yes, I reply then watch the night 

descend upon the low limb  

she had once griped.