SUMMER OF CHANGE

In the summer of 1962, I had no idea that a big change was coming in my life.  I spent that summer living away from home during the week working as a nanny.  On one of my weekends at home,  my parents told me that they had bought a new house and that we were moving before school started.   They had bought a brand new home, several miles away.  The move would mean that I would be going to a different high school and a different LDS ward.

I was stunned and upset.  I didn't want to move away from all my  friends.  I certainly didn't want to change schools for the last two years of high school.  I wasn't the least bit excited about a new, bigger, house, with a dishwasher, that was in a more upscale neighborhood that bordered a lake. To me, our house was just fine. But I had no say in the decision.  As a teenager, my life as I knew it was over.

Since I was gone from home during the week, my mother did most of the packing and clearing out of the home where we had lived for 14 years.  Having made many such moves as an adult, I know that it was a lot of work for her.  But back then, I had no concept of what had to be done.  She even took on getting my things ready for the move.

I came home one week and discovered that during the week she had gone through my bedroom and packed up most of my things.  But she didn't just pack up everything that I had. She had gone through my childhood treasures and trinkets and got rid of many things.  That was like pouring salt into the wound that I already had to deal with about moving.  I was very angry and crying as I asked her, "How could you do that with out asking me?".  It was like she had just thrown away my memories on top of making me move from the only home I had known.  It was devastating.

Ever since then, I haven't been much of a keeper of "things".  I guess my mother's actions told me that things and stuff that make memories aren't that important.  Keepsakes aren't important.  But, I have regretted that I didn't have my dolls and the clothes that my mother had made for the dolls to pass on to my daughters and granddaughters. I didn't keep the dresses that my girls were blessed in to pass on to their daughters.  I didn't keep the dress with hand smocking that my mother made for my oldest daughter when that daughter was about two. What a shame.  In all the moves that I've made as a married adult, it really wouldn't have taken much to pack away a few special things. But, I didn't.

The move to the new house happened during the week while I was living away from home.  I left on Sunday evening from the old house and came back on Friday evening to the new house. I don't even think that I got much of a chance to say goodbye to friends.  There was one bright spot in the move.  I would still see my church friends at early morning Seminary every day.  It turned out that some of my church friends families also bought new homes and moved from the ward that same summer. We were all sad that our life long associations were being broken up and that we'd have to forge ahead in a new school and ward.