My parents still live in the same home they moved into two months after they were married in 1961.

That said, a LOT of my stuff is gone mostly because I shared a room with my sister and when I left for college she took over the room. After I graduated from undergrad and left for grad school, my sister and Mom sorted my stuff. The few valuable things went in the attic or cellar, the rest to Goodwill.

Still, the house holds a lot of things with good memories.

My husband's mom just bought a small apt moved out from her home she(and her husband who passed away a few yrs ago) owned for more than 40 yrs.
The old home had my husband's desk, bed, old toys, clothes, school stuff packed in..so yes, we had to bring them into our home...Now I know why people have basement and attic.
I miss visiting her old home as she had a nice lawn and had so much space for my little daughter but at the same time, i am glad my mil moved on.

Actually, I'm sort of in between: my parents moved just before my junior year of college (after living in one house since before I was born). I don't have all the memories of the house like I would havbe if they hadn't moved, but I do have a bedroom that holds a lot of my high school and before stuff. But it's a room that my mom decorated. However, I did live there over the holidays, a couple weeks each summer, and then for 3 months when I was still looking for a full time job after grad school.

I do feel like it's "their house" and not "our house" whenever I'm there, especially since I now stay in the actual guest room (with my husband) when I visit.

What about the third group -- which would be those whose parents have 'moved on' permanently to whatever (if anything) exists when we leave this earth?

This is completely beside the point, but I love the adorable house in the picture for the post! I wonder what kind of ground cover/turf that is? It makes the driveway look great.

My parents just moved and downsized this past year and recently drove down a truck-load of stuff to help furnish our new home. There were a few useful pieces, like a nice love sofa and kitchen table, a lot of transitional pieces to use until I can find something better, and a ton of things they had been storing since I was a child (such as my epic collection of troll dolls. Um, thanks.). It was sad to sell their old house, especially since my husband and I got married in the backyard, and strange to think that my own kids won't have any personal memories of it.

My parents still live in the same house we moved into when I was 15. Last year I got divorced and had to move back in with them with my two year old. I just moved into a house of my own last month and took all of my stuff with me. Now they have two empty rooms without furniture or anything. I thought it would be hard being on my own and weird visiting them...but I think it is a lot harder/weirder for them.

"We think the world can be split into two groups..."

Reminds me of a Tom Robbins quote. Something like: "There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who are smart enough to know better."

Apropos of nothing: that's a cute little house.

@pippigirl: HA! I appreciate your point, but think it's safe to assume they are talking about people who are lucky enough to have both parents still living, and not divorced.

My mom moves around a lot, we also don't speak so I don't have any nostalgia when I used to visit her, it was mostly nausea.

Her parents, though, have lived in the same house for over 50 years. I love visiting, it's a nice peaceful feeling. I don't know what I'll do if they sell it.

My parents stayed in their house. My mother had to be moved out of it after she contracted Alzheimers as we were not able to have her cared for exclusively at home. That's a terrible heartache I wish on no one.

My sister bought the house as part of our working out of the "inheritance." She uses it very occasionally as a summer retreat. I 've never been back since my mother left, and I'm not really sure I'm emotionally up to it. I grew up there; my oldest brothers & sisters didn't--they moved constantly while my father was in the armed services. I guess it makes sense that my sister & I are the ones with the attachment to the place. I wish a happy young family was living there and enjoying it though, instead of it sitting empty most of the time. It was a magical old farm house with a lot of character and room for dreams.

My Parents moved both house, and then later country while I was at University - Some stuff I've kept, lots of stuff I've got rid of, but it's made me have to stand on my own two feet much more - which other friends of mine have managed to buy houses because they had the chance / luxury to love with their parents nearby to our place of work.

My parents still live in the same house but they've made a lot of changes over the years. My old room is definitely not "preserved." It's now my mom's office. They also have a workout room, a library, and a 2nd office for my dad that they didn't have before. I feels like home, but not at the same time. I think the room that's changed the least is the kitchen. Maybe that's why I gravitate there when I go back.

We never stayed in the same place for long as a kid, so I don't really have a 'family home'
My parents moved again a few years ago. When I visit and stay over, I sleep in the guest room. I don't call it "home" - I call it my parents' house.

@mirandabee - hearted! love your quote, love Tom Robbins and love the cute little house, too.

My parents still live in the house I technically "grew up" in - that is to say, the house I spent my formidable years of Junior High, Senior High, and college. But I don't have a room there anymore - in fact, my old room now belongs to my younger sister.

So when I go "home," the house still feels like "home" because it's where my parents live, but it's not my home. But like I tell my friends, home isn't where I grew up, home is where my family is, so if they moved across the country or around the world, that would be "home" to me. :)

My dad still lives in the same house I grew-up in and it's nice to go "home" sometimes. My room definitely doesn't look the same, though. My dad turned it into his den and now it has a western theme complete with horses and cowboys. Nothing at all like the pink confection I had while growing-up.

My parents still live in the house we moved into in 1983, but they long ago evicted all of our belongings. My sister's room became my mom's office when she retired from her full-time job and became a freelancer. My room is now the TV/media room. Several years ago they even went on a basement cleaning binge and told us that anything we didn't claim would be tossed.

That said, it's still home and it still feels that way when I visit.

Ah! @mirandabee I LOVE that quote and Tom Robbins in general! I always think of that quote when I see a statement like that.

And yes, my parents moved into a new house so my dad didn't have to walk up stairs (we lived in an upstairs apartment/condo that we owned). But it wasn't a great move because they now live in the middle of nowhere stuck in a crappy McMansion bought at the height of the housing bubble.

I doesn't really feel weird because when I moved out at 18 to go to college I never stayed there for more than 1-2 weeks at a time (stayed at college through summers) and home is something that I carry with me now. Plus being around my family is draining to say the least so I never get the full warm and fuzzies about visiting. I feel at home when I visit my boyfriend of 7+ years on the weekend.

My parents moved around a lot when I was a kid. They settled into their last house when I was around 13, so I grew up there for much of my life. It was a rental, however, and we didn't like it very much, so none of us were ever very attached to that house. What remained constant throughout my childhood was our furniture. My parents moved out of the house in NY and into an apartment in NC and made me take all of my stuff (the worst). Their furniture is in the new place, so it feels like home. And, believe it or not, the furniture they bought in the 80s is still fabulous.

My parents still live in my childhood home, but almost all of my "stuff" is gone. Ironically my husband's mother has moved several times since he left high school, yet she continues to haul around all sorts of boxes of his crap. I have lots of great memories of my old house, and still love to visit, but there have been a lot of changes. I don't even sleep in my old bedroom when there. Other rooms feel far more familiar, although I think it's the furnishings as much as anything that make the biggest difference.

My dad still lives in the farmhouse my great-great grandpa built back in 1879 on our homestead in MN. He moved out for about 4 years after his high school graduation and then moved back in when his parents decided to experience California. That was the first time my grandpa ever moved. He was about 50. Needless to say that house is home to many of my relatives, which my step-mom hasn't figured out yet.

I feel fortunate to be so close to my ancestors. Whenever I am on the farm I really feel as if it is where I belong.

I'll take that house for my home!!

My single mother moved with us from small apartment to small apartment until I was eighteen and moved into one of my own. There was never much space for storage of childhood "keepsakes". Home has always been more of an idea or a feeling than a specific place.

my mom (dad passed when I was younger) still lives in the home I came home from the hospital in. While it is a nothing special house I loved growing up there and Im glad she is still there for my soon-to-be daughter to have memories in as well. I am also very close to my mom so while if she ever needed/wanted to move home would be where she is. But the house is a big part of my life and it holds all the memories of my childhood and of my father as well..

Ha! In addition to moving almost every five years, my parents moved the summer before I went to college, so when I went "home" it was to this totally new place, where I would get lost all the time and had absolutely no friends. So frustrating! When I graduated they moved a year later. I think it's fate that I'm going to continue this pattern of moving...

My parents moved several times while I still lived with them and another two since I moved out so I never have really had a childhood home. That said, my mother's parents have lived in the house that's been in the family since the 50s for the past 30 years. That's the house I'll be upset to see go if it ever does.

PS I WANT that house in the picture. O.O

I moved several times growing up and my parents have moved a couple times more after I left for college and adulthood (and I continued to move as well.) The idea of a house as representative of "home" to me is not part of my thinking. Home is where your loved ones are, not a building.

My parents still live in the same house we all grew up in. I lost my room to my little sister last year though. She has one more year of university, and was desperate to move out of her basement bedroom. Since I have been on my own for a number of years, it only made sense that I give up my larger room. Now when I go home to visit (yes, I still call it home), I stay in the guest room. At least they moved my old bed in there.

I told my mom that if they ever sold the house, they'd probably see me a lot less frequently. There wouldn't be the same pull to make it home for holidays. But I know the day will come when they sell. It will be a big empty house for just two people.

I'm in the awkward "both" category; my parents divorced this year. My mom kept the house and my dad moved to the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Since all of us kids are either in or done with college, we've been helping Mom "upgrade" the house. My old room has my brother's bed and is a designated "craft room," though I still have boxes in the closet. My sister's old room has our two matching childhood beds in it, and is a kid's guest room. My brother's room is pretty much still his, since he's a college sophomore this year, but will soon be the grown-up guest room. My sister, brother-in-law and I go over there for "Craft Night" every week, which last night, was us watching "Twister" with a passel of cousins.
My dad moved in May, and my sister and I have each taken a trip out there to help furnish the place. I made the curtains for his new apartment, and it was pretty cool seeing them go up and fit in just right in a place I'd never been before.

My mom the house I grew up in when I was 19... so "home" immediately became where ever I was living. I think it made me much more conscious about creating a "real" home for myself, even as a college student.

Conversely, my partner's parents lived in the same NYC apartment for 40 years. And we ended up moving in when both of them passed away within two years of each other. That was an interesting process... figuring out how to make his childhood home, with decades of memories, OUR home. Luckily, the whole place had to undergo a major renovation due to water damage... every room had to be repainted. And as we started putting the place back together, we started rethinking the space. We figured out how to use the nicest of his parents stuff to best advantage...often repurposing or moving things to different rooms. Then we integrated our own things. There was some hesitancy at first from my partner... but after I put together one room (the guest room) in a way that he found to be totally comfortable and charming, he was happy to rethink the whole place. It still has plenty of reminders of this childhood... but is not a shrine to a parent's home.

A catslide roof! There's a whole neighborhood of those in Chicago on the Northwest Side.

My parents sold our "growing-up" house to friends of mine, which makes it a little strange, because I like some of what they did to it and hate other parts.

I'm surprised by how many people appear offended at their parents for moving or who feel like home is not home once their parents have changed their childhood place. We have lived in 6 homes in my lifetime and each one becomes a new definition of home as my parents transition to suit their needs in different times of their lives.

We moved homes growing up first as my sisters were born and more space was needed, then as we moved here from another country, then from a rental to a home, and then a place for them when the big house we grew up in America became too much work for two and they wanted to enjoy other activities beside cleaning and maintaining a huge home. I've loved every new home and the adventure of moving.

As an Army brat, I moved around constantly growing up (11 times before I was 18). My folks have never owned a home-- we've always lived on post or in rentals. They moved to their most recent house after I graduated college and have been there for a few years. Home to me has nothing to do with the structure and everything to do with what's inside. As long as I know the rooster cookie jar, my favorite spoon, our family pictures, and the box of records are there, it's home.

My parents split up less than a week after I graduated from college. My dad moved out and my mom stayed in the house for a year or so before finding her own place. I moved out a few months after graduation, so while she was still in the house it felt like "home." Now it's just visiting mom or dad. Same goes with my husband's parents, in the reverse: his mom moved out and his dad sold the house. Neither of us have our childhood homes to go back to, but we'll drive by them sometimes.

My parents built their house when I was one years old, so it is the only house I ever remember living in. It is an architecturally modern gem set deep in the woods. I've told them time and again that if they ever move, I get first dibs on the house. I love it there and would love to raise my children in such a nature filled environment.

My parents have been in the same house since I was in Kindergarten. My mom's parents were still in her childhood home when they passed away. My dad's mother moved out of his childhood home about five years before she passed away. So in the past ten years, my parents home has been filled with furniture and other items from their parents' homes.

My parents encourage me to take something from my old room each time I visit. But I'll soon be down to sentimental things that I don't want or have room for in my apartment but somehow can't bear to get rid of. What have others done with porcelain dolls and figurines from long-ago special occasions?

My parents sold my childhood home when they divorced when I was in college. My sister and my mother packed up my room and put all the boxes along with any boxes of mine that were in the basement in storage. I finally moved back to the state two years ago and have been slowly going through all the boxes (which have some treasure mixed in with elementary school track ribbons and every card my parents received when I was born).

Visiting mom (in her loft) feel like visiting and I'm happy she has a place of her own. I always think kids my age (lat 20s) are being selfish when they get annoyed their mom turned "their bedroom" into a sewing room or something.

Houses are just buildings, until you start to build memories with your love ones. As an middle aged woman I thank god every day for my memories. I 've tried over the last thirty years to build traditions and memories for my girls. There's nothing better when you get a certain age because at some point that's all you have left of your dearly departed ones and of the things you can no longer do. So everyone continue to build on or start your own new memories.

Timely post for me, since my parents have finally decided to give up the old homestead and move somewhere closer to one of us kids. It's a little sad, and a little daunting, since it does mean a massive family sorting through forty years of precious sentimental treasures and odd junk that they've squirreled away.

Addendum: However, if my parents' house was as cute as the one pictured, I would NEVER let them sell it.

My parents bought their house in 1972 when I was 3 months old. My mom still lives there (my dad passed away). Most of my belongings moved out with me. My mom saved some things (yearbooks, prom dress) I had put in the trash, insisting that I'd want them some day, but I still don't want them.

My room was converted into a den a long time ago. My sister's room is a guest room - it's still a very 80's lavender but we took the iridescent unicorn poster off the wall a few years ago. My brother's room was turned into an office - sort of. It still has panelling and 'Empire Strikes Back' wallpaper. They intended to redo the room but put it off and now everyone in the universe agrees that it's hilarious so it probably will stay as-is until my mom decides to sell the house.

my parents still live in the house I grew up in. I don't have my own room (the furniture is still there) My parents have been slowly taking over our rooms and making it their own. And in my mind, that's how it should be. Preserving a teenage room would be a terrible waste of space. Now my dad has his own office and my mom a craft room.

Not even a year after I moved out, my parents announced that they bought a BIGGER house a few streets over from the one my sister and I grew up in. But by bigger, I don't mean palatial--one with more than one toilet, a two-car garage, and a family room--although as a homeowner myself without any of those "extras," I consider that palatial. :)

My parents moved from Richmond to Charlotte a few years ago and redid my bedroom almost exactly haha

Last month they moved back to Richmond temporarily while they spend a few years getting ready to move to MEXICO CITY! (Guess they saw how much I love living in Mexico and decided to come down haha)

As of now my stuff is still in the bedroom at the Charlotte house, but the house is on the market so it will be in storage soon. Wish I could take some of it with me, but it's too big to take on a plane back to Cancun.

My mom sold the house my family had lived in since I was a year old, last year (I'm 27 now). It was an extremely emotional experience for me and my sister. So many memories in one place. I will always consider that house, the street, the neighborhood, my home.

My parents moved from the house my mother and her first husband purchase in '61 about three years ago.
They sold the house to me!!!
I renovated and turned it into a rental.
Most theraputic thing I've done in my life ;-)

My parents divorced when I was young and my mom remarried shortly after that. My childhood home wasn't my house, it was "theirs" and this has made me on a mission to buy a house for my kids and stay there forever! I want my kids to be able to come home no matter what and flop on the couch and feel serene, cozy and restored. That was totally missing from my chilldhood (we couldn't even lay on the couch and veg all day if we were home sick from school) and I really want this for my family.

My dad's parents moved from the house that they had for almost my dad's entire life to a condo while he was away at business school (my grandpa was very sick and they couldn't stay in the house once my dad went to grad school and couldn't help out any longer). When he came home for the summer, he and my mom tried to find the condo from the address they had given him, and then he knocked on the door a stranger answered! It turns out there were two streets with the exact same name within a couple miles of each other (with the same condo numbers), and he found the wrong one. (He also didn't have their new phone number, but he eventually was able to figure out that there was a second street and he did find them.) He always joked that they were trying to hide from him.

My parents still live in the same house. We moved there after my Papa and Dad built it when I was 4 and my brother was a baby. What's weird now is my parents had a third child when I was a senior in high school. She is now 12 and lives in MY room! That's strange, but life wouldn't be the same without her!

My parents (and grandparents) have moved around quite a bit, so the childhood home is long gone but they have kept much of the same furniture and knicknacks over the years, so their new home still seems like home to me even if it's a completely different building in a different state. I do find it weird that most of my friends go back to their childhood homes to visit their parents. But anyone with both parents living is fortunate enough in that respect, the family goes on the same even moved to foreign surroundings.

My parents still live in my childhood home, but all traces of the kids' rooms are long gone (as they should be, I'm in my 40s!).

It is funny, the house is a simple late 60s ranch style, simply furnished, and yet I feel happier in that house than in any beautifully decorated place I've ever visited. Love really does make a home.

My parents still live in the house my dad grew up in. I dread the day they decide to leave, because there is now three generations of stuff in the basement.

My parents divorced when I was 11 and my mom sold the house when I was 13. After that, I moved a lot, back and forth between parents, and in three different states. The house wasn't anything special, but I sometimes wish I had something to go back to. Most of my childhood items were lost or gotten rid of during moves.

My oldest will go to college next year, and while she's welcome to come back, she has already been told that her youngest sister will be moving into her room. We all love this house, and my husband and I plan to stay here. We have only lived here for a little over a year, and I feel kind of bad that my oldest did not get to grow up here too! She has other memories of our old house, which my two youngest won't remember though.

I can't imagine keeping a child's room as it was when they lived at home. It seems crazy to not change the space and make it into something you love and can use.

My parents sold their home about 7 years ago and moved into an active over 55 retirement community. Apparently I was the last person they told when the sold the house, because they knew that I would be more upset about it than anyone else in the family. When they moved, I inherited all my old crap, plus some newer crap that my parents were getting rid of during the move. Their new house is nice for them...everything they need is on one floor, but I still miss the old house that I grew up in.

My dad is currently in the process of moving. It's been an incredibly difficult situation to go through because not only does it involve going through all of my old things, but also my mom's old things. Then to make things even more fraught my step-mother and her daughter have moved in after selling her house and the house is completely different (though, I'll admit in a good way) because it's been fixed up for showings. Rooms have been repainted, rearranged, repurposed. It's just strange to come "home" and realize it doesn't feel quite right.

This is a wonderful theme. My mom made my dad move into a smaller all-on-one-level 2 bd home after all us 5 kids were gone from home. We're so happy she did as it is way more manageable for her now that she is 90 and lives there alone.

We raised our 3 daughters in the same house until the last one graduated from college, and then we downsized to a one-level home.

I have always told them that their "home" is wherever Dad and I live.

But I've heard that the best time of a woman's life is when the kids leave home and the dog dies...

When I got married (I'm the baby and only girl) my parents moved to a small cottage and Mom gave me her wedding china and the silver.

Then she told everyone that Thanksgiving would be held at my house FROM NOW ON because I had "custody" of the good dishes. She thought she was pretty funny.

My mom and stepfather moved out of my childhood home, but it doesn't matter. They have lived in a couple homes since then, but whenever I visit my mom I feel at home. I think "home" is more of a feeling than a place and wherever my mom lives feels like home.

My parents still live in the same house from when they were married in 1946. My bedroom has been long gone to make room for their hobbies. 83 and 91. Long may they live.

My parents just moved last May...so I ended up with pretty much everything from my old room. They downsized from a 4 bedroom to a 2 bedroom and it all had to go for the most part!

I still feel at "home" where they moved to, because they actually ended up moving into the house my husband purchased (before we were married) and lived in right after he graduated from college. It's a small world.

My parents recently moved, but they still own the house I grew up in. In fact, they've rented out our old home. I still have a room at the new house, but it doesn't feel like my room. Whenever I go home for a weekend or a week, it feels like I'm traveling and I am just bunking at a hotel, only without having to pay for room & board. All my stuff from the old house was moved over to the new place, but because I wasn't there for the move, I have lost track of a lot of my stuff. After finishing my undergrad, I may move back in with my parents, so maybe then I can make it my room.

mjs7640 - Re kids and dog - very true! Your mother does sound funny, actually.

My childhood home, the only one I had ever known, was sold a few years ago. At that point I had been married about 25 years, so I didn't care. Really, it's just a building. I still have the memories, good and bad.

my parents still live in the same old house i grew up in. i spent the summer after college going through everything i'd accumulated over the years and got rid of tons of junk, just in case they ever want to downsize and move.

that being said, i'm more attached to my parents' neighborhood than their house. so i'd completely support a move as long as they stayed in the area.

None of my family members in my parents generation live in the same home as when I was growing up. Actually, my grandparents were the last ones to leave the home they spent their married life in, and raised their children in. It's sad not having that tie to my childhood.

I've been in my house 8 years; I live within 2-3 easy miles of the homes of the two prior generations in my family--the homes of my childhood. Maybe still being in the same part of town (or even neighborhood) makes it feel even stranger not to be able to drop by and say hello.

A few months after I left for college my parents moved from California to Colorado, leaving me the only family member (extended family included) in the state. I grew up in a small old rental house and the new house they moved to is much newer, bigger, and now owned by them so "home" changed quite a bit. Like another commenter mentioned, it was tough coming home in the summers when I didn't know anyone. I lived and worked out there in the summer, but I mostly worked with older adults (with their own families and kids - completely different lifestyle from my then-college lifestyle) in offices so I never managed to have very much fun during the summers I spent there.

Despite this, I still consider it home since my parents live there. Though now "home" means three different places - my apartment in California, my boyfriend's apartment, and my parents' home. I'm rarely in the CA Bay Area where I grew up, but when I am I like to be a creeper and drive by the house I grew up in to see what it looks like, just for sentimental kicks.

My family moved constantly - my parents moved to their last house right after I moved out. And it's huge! More than a decade later, I'm living with them again (by choice for all of us; we like each other a lot, and as I said the house is huge).

We've been going through all the old stuff of mine they hoarded; they're more sentimental about it than I am, and it is a challenge to get Mom to let go of, for instance, my old Barbies. But we have all committed to the process, which is necessary because we were running out of storage space.

My husband loves the process of going through my old stuff, though, imagining me as a kid. That's been nice and kind of surprising.

Anyway, the house has never felt frozen in time; my DIY and redecorating instincts are perhaps genetically inherited, and rooms around here don't tend to stay locked down for long before someone decides to tinker.

My parents have separated but I still feel at home any time I visit either one of them. My mom lives in the house we lived in since I was a baby, and my dad lives in an apartment above our family business that's been open since 1918.
Since this economy is so bad and I'm an only child (my mom doesn't need a 3 bedroom house to herself!) my room has been rented out, so it feels a little less like home, but all my things and pets are still there. :)

I moved out about 10 years ago of the house my family has lived in since 1985. Luckily, they have a lot of storage off site, so that's where all of my stuff is. Actually, that might be unlucky -- I've got a decade of crap to sort through when I move back to the state next year. It's going to look like the final scene of Citizen Kane.

I'm surprised there haven't been more posts like mine...
My parents moved when I graduated college a decade ago, but they made their new home as inviting and comforting as the one I grew up in. It's home, it's a retreat, and most importantly, it's where my family is.

We moved every few years, but we made each and every place a home. Now friends are amazed at how quickly I settle into a new home, how fast I unpack (and that I unpack everything -- for some reason when you move a lot you don't leave anything in boxes) and how comfortable every place I live is.

And although I never lived there, for some reason I still call my mom's house in NC home. Weird, I know.

My parents moved my last year of college. My brother was still living at home at the time, so he has "his" room there, but I don't. I moved out of state about two years after they moved, so now when I come and visit I always stay in the same room. I like the new house. It took a while to grow on me, but my parents live only a few miles from where I grew up and the new house is much nicer. I still drive through the old neighborhood when I'm in town, and it's changed even in the five years since they moved. It was weird at first though, I'm not going to lie.

My parents moved after I moved out. Now I can't remember where to find a pen or sugar.
It's definitely their home and when i go there I sleep in my father's pc-room o_O

My two sisters and I shared a small room in the house that my parents still live in. Now it has been taken over by dad's "computer games"--I mean from floor to ceiling taken over.

So I do not have a memorial/shrine there at all. It is more like where old computer games go to die....

My parents recently moved in a slight hurry, so we had almost no time to really think about what we were getting rid of. I cleaned out my entire room, I hardly kept anything. We didn't have a lot of time or energy to sell stuff, so the local Goodwill got a massive amount of great stuff.

Besides happening within a matter of weeks, it was extra bad timing since I was in the middle of downsizing myself. I ended up taking a box of stuff, a few rugs and a coffee table to help them out. It's unfortunate because now I would've been in a better position to take more or at least sell stuff for them. It's making me sad now! :(

My parents purchased their home in 1961. I was 5 years old when we moved in and my little brother was 6 months old. It had remained in our family until two and a half weeks ago. I moved out when I got married 26 years ago but since my new home was in the same town, I returned to my childhood home every day to visit my parents. Dad passed away in 1994. Mom passed away in 2009. I could not bring myself to even start cleaning out their possessions until 2010. Before we started emptying it I took photos of every room. My brother and I took all our personal childhood things (Mom had kept everything) we wanted. And we took what we could of our parents possessions. The rest was either sold or donated. It was such a painful process. I finally put the house up for sale three months ago. I thought it would take forever to find a buyer due to the market conditions. But we had a buyer in less than two weeks. We closed title 2 1/2 weeks ago. Selling the house was heartbreaking for me. Although I moved out so long ago, it was always home. It was my childhood home and contains so many memories. The day we closed title I went to the house for one last time to say my goodbyes. I walked through every single room. Each one was filled with countless memories. I cried like a baby. I could not bear leaving because I knew that once I walked out the door and turned the key I would never be returning. I would have loved to keep the house but it was much too large for my husband and I. I still keep thinking I have to go there every day to check on it. Whenever I think it is no longer ours, which is often, the tears begin to flow.