Endings

Tonight Lauren and the boys destroyed a bench and fire pit that we built together as a family in 2005.

Our house has a beautiful view of the valley off the back patio, and soon after we bought the place we decided it would be fun to have a fire pit out there. Since we've never seemed to do anything in a conventional way, we built the pit out of tin cans, then stuccoed over them. The bench we made out of straw bales and stucco to match the house. It took us a couple of weekends of hard work. The boys were little then, 5 and 7. Since then we've used that bench and pit over and over again. The boys like to build up a fire and roast marshmallows. We've had a tradition of building a fire in celebration of the winter solstice. Seems like every birthday party has involved a fire in the pit in one way or another. We've also cooked meals out there--
chickens on a spit, dutch oven potatoes.

Over the years they started to crack, and we kept talking about repairing them but never did, and the cracks got worse and worse. Yesterday after the open house, our realtor told us that several people commented that they were in rough shape, and suggested that we take them out. So tonight Lauren and the boys bashed that pit and bench right out of existence. The boys are bigger now and with all 3 of them yielding weapons those suckers came down so fast it made my head spin.

Well, the symbolism is obvious.
I stood out on the pile of rubble and thought of all our years of hard work, good times, and traditions. I'm grateful for those years and I know there's more of those things in all of our futures.
But for tonight, I'm just feeling sad.