Good-bye mail box. Good-bye loft. Good-bye island. Good-bye Timpson. Good-bye home. Good-bye memories, everywhere.

I had sat many evenings around the island to my left. Sometimes with friends into the wee hours of the night, other times with my mom and dad.

Behind me was where we took our last family photo we took in November of 2002.

10 feet in front of me is where my Daddy would take his last breath. 2 feet beyond that was an unmade bed where my mom last slept.

To my left was the gas stove that my mom had made many chocolate pies, chicken casseroles, and Thanksgiving treats.

…and in a matter of hours we would have everything out and I would be closing the door for the last time. Every moment was surreal and hard to comprehend. I even reveled in my last visit to the post office that I had been checking since I was 15 years old.

Here is what the grief taught me in the still silence while my memories were on a collision course to my heart.

1. There are some things we never get to do again.

I thought it was important to really process that reality. I would never step foot in this apartment again. Every square foot held a memory, and I was suddenly terrified of forgetting them all.

It didn’t last long;) I knew I would never hear the sound of the wood creaking under my feet again, but to some degree I knew that this place… my mom… would be with me forever.

2. Roots are important.

My mom thought often that I had abandoned who I was for who I had become. In the 30 days I would spend back in my hometown, I found the truth. The town, the memories, are all a big part of who I am. I may not have ended up the way she expected, and I may have changed a lot… but the core of who I am still drives barefoot with the music up and the windows down… just like I did when I was 15. Timpson… this apartment… it will always be with me.

3. What we leave behind never leaves us.

What I want out of community today is what Timpson taught me as a child. I want to live where I know the produce man at the grocery store… just like I knew Mr. Duke… and I’ll be darned… I know every time my friend JC is working at HEB because when I walk in… I hear him singing gospel music. My friends… I never chose them… but they chose me… that has not stopped even in my 30s. I wanted to have the chance to get stuck in a 15 minute conversation anywhere I go because I knew people’s stories… and they knew mine… I learned that from Timpson, and I have been able to recreate here in Burleson.

The curtain was calling on this stage. As I felt like I was ripping myself from my childhood, I had to keep reminding myself… What I will leave behind in a few short hours, would never leave me.