A Love Letter to Our Home

What a gift you were to these babies trying to start a life together. We’d been eyeing that one bedroom downtown apartment when a Farha cousin (#wichita) shared the rental he had on Glendale.

One week before our wedding, we giddily started moving stuff in.   Our fancy new bed set was delivered.   Out-of-town guests helped us drag everything from our college apartments into our HOME.   

We’ve been here ever since.

Every room has its own story to tell.  Sacred spaces for those moments of time that shape us.

I pause in those spaces a lot these days.

Standing where traditions were started and continued.

Standing where we received life-shattering news.

Standing where the comfort of family and friends carried us through.

The family room that held infinite movie nights and allowed us to heal from sickness, surgeries, and injuries.

The family room where my dad helped  Aaron install the flooring.  Literally giving us a foundation on which to raise our children.

The same family room in which I sat wrapped in his arms as he told us he had terminal cancer.

That spot where I danced with my newborn when the weight of new motherhood felt too much.  The site of spontaneous dance parties when the music and the grill and the freedom of summer required celebration.

The bachelorette nights that were slowly replaced by baby’s first birthday parties.

The pink bathroom where I found out I was pregnant with each of our children.

The shower singing during the joy.  The tears that were washed away from profound grief.

The entryway that welcomed each baby home.

The entryway that welcomed my father to our home for the last time.

The bedrooms for goodnight songs, storytime, prayers.  Falling asleep beside cribs and toddler beds and twin size beds.  The babies got bigger, but their lullabies remain the same.

My art studio in the basement that gave me space to create.

The walls and ceilings that became canvases because “we would never move.”

Each room the victim of various 3 am projects… craft shows, pie selling, cake selling, armies of peg dolls and pompoms.

You’ve held the sounds of our furry children, Chrissy, Charlotte, Rosie.  The pups that we have loved and also tried our patience.

Where our children share core memories with their cousins, and our whole families gather in joyful chaos.

Magical Christmas memories starting with two stockings… then three…four… five.   The front porch as the stage for Halloween Costumes.  The tree  for First Day of School documentation. Our COVID Thanksgiving.

The slightly out of tune piano that nurtured the love of music for each of us.  That heard a thousand hymns from Aaron as he grew as a chanter.

The same hymns that echoed from the basement shower each morning as we rushed to start our days.

Navigating marriage, parenthood, vocations.

That one night in the dining room when the valley between us felt so large that we might not find our way back to each other.

That one night in the dining room when we forged the path through the wilderness and met in the middle.

The corners only each of us know about.  Where life felt too heavy, so we asked God to help us carry it all.  And He did.  He is still.

The surreal day Aaron shared where he felt he should be heading.

The emotional day we told the kids.

A 20th year spent soaking up. Looking back.  Looking forward.   Curating the physical items we want to bring on the journey and letting go of what no longer serves us.

Someday, the flooring will be switched out and thrown in the dumpster.  The rose bush will be uprooted to make way for someone else’s Mother’s Day present.

That’s okay.  This will always be hallowed ground for us because we lived lives full of love in these walls.

We will carry this to the next space we share together.  And the next one after that.   You gave us the foundation, 227. And we are grateful.

Love,

The Farhas

Next
Next

The Tapestry