Saying Goodbye to a House Full of Memories

By Peyton H. Roberts

Peeking around the doorframe, the little girl startles at the sight of bare walls. Where school artwork and family photos once seemed permanent fixtures, only scratched yellow paint and pushpin holes remain. 
The girl tucks a ribbon of hair behind her ear and scrunches her nose. “Goodbye, room,” she says. “Thanks for the bedtime stories. Thanks for the sweet dreams.”
Dragging her feet down the worn hallway carpet, the girl accompanies her family to the final stop on the goodbye tour. The living room is empty of furniture but full of memories. Each family member takes a turn thanking the room for couch forts and tickle fights, movie nights and snuggle parties. 
A final memory is shared followed by a silence that lingers.
The little girl meanders one final time through the hallways that cradled her childhood. The space between these walls is the most normal place in the world, which makes each empty room feel even more naked. 
Stepping one last time through the front door, the little girl looks up. Her mother is smiling, but the creases around her eyes suggest an apology. 
The little girl is me, when I was six.
The little girl is our daughter, now six. 
The family is mine—both then and now.
I remember, perhaps too well, what it felt like to be this little girl on the dreaded moving days of my childhood. My father’s job in the oil industry relocated our family from Texas to Ohio to Oklahoma to Florida, all between Kindergarten and third grade. A brutal final move to Texas junior year of high school found me once again the new kid, fumbling my way into pre-existing social groups.
As moving became part of our family’s identity, it also formed the foundation of my mother’s profession. Frustrated by the lack of resources available at the time, she wrote and published a book called Smart Moves, positioning herself as an expert in family relocation—which she absolutely was. Aggravated from leaving our friends so many times, my sister and I joked we would one day write the sequel, Stupid Moves. I vowed to never make my own kids leave their friends. 
Decades after denouncing moving, I return to the familiar scene, this time as a military spouse playing the unfamiliar role of mom. Watching our daughter become the little girl on moving day, my cumulative inexperience as a parent weighs on me. I don’t know what to do or say to help her navigate this huge life change.
Her discomfort shifts as we wave goodbye to each room, thanking it for the memories we made. I credit my mom, the moving expert, for inviting me to try this ritual, which even in the early 90’s seemed hokey. But as my own young family prepares to leave our home, saying goodbye somehow helps us separate the memories we can take with us from the physical spaces we cannot.
As we close the front door one final time, visions from our first years as parents rush at me. Bringing our newborn son home from the hospital. Hosting a takeout Thanksgiving dinner for relatives who came to us during a long deployment. The first glorious family breakfast when my husband returned home months later, the baby sitting up, savoring mashed sweet potatoes.
We reverse out of the driveway. I blink away the early family memories.
On the final drive down our street, we wave goodbye to three years’ worth of once-strangers we came to know during countless family walks on warm-enough evenings. A look at our daughter’s teary face as we pass Leah and Jenna’s house solidifies what, whether as mom or daughter, remains the hardest part of this day.
Leaving behind dear friends. 
Two uprooted weeks later, we arrive across the country. The trees wave new kinds of leaves at us, and the squirrels are black, not brown. Thinner air chaps our lips.
We collect foreign-looking housekeys and push open the squeaky door at our new address. The one-bathroom apartment is a third the size of the two-story house we waved goodbye to. I’m hopeful the kids don’t notice.
We walk through unfamiliar hallways inspecting each room. “What do you think?” I ask.
“Our new house is good. But it is empty,” our young son remarks. His observation is so stunning, I write it down word for word.
Our daughter opens her palm to receive my phone. “Can I FaceTime with Leah and Jenna?”
In the following days, the big truck arrives and unloads, and I understand why the paperwork calls everything household goods. The no-longer-empty apartment is now full of our bedding and our dishes and our framed photos. Every box we open reveals a treasure trove of goodies that make the new space look oddly like our home.
Before long, the rooms are full of things, but empty of memories. 
The first night we sleep in our new rooms is the day our son turns three. His face brightens as we explain that instead of a party, he gets a new house for his birthday. After dinner on our patio, we jam three candles into a waffle cone full of mint chocolate chip ice cream and sing Happy Birthday. 
The first memories in our new home across the country are underway. A few cardboard boxes remain unpacked in our living room and framed art is stacked to hang, yet I can’t help but wonder if this moving-in birthday party will be one of the stories we retell when the time comes to pack everything up and say goodbye again. 

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Peyton H. Roberts is a writer, speaker, and Navy spouse of 17 years. Her stories about military family life have appeared in The New York Times, Military Families Magazine, We Are the Mighty, and more. Peyton’s social impact novel Beneath the Seams (Scrivenings Press, 2021) was inspired by events that happened while stationed on Guam. Her forthcoming book includes love letters her grandfather wrote her grandmother aboard the USS Midway. Connect with Peyton at www.peyton-roberts.com.