Stranger in my own home...

When?  When did I become a stranger in my own home? The very home I grew up in? 

The day you died Dad. The minute I saw you and held your cold and lifeless hand. I felt like an intruder. Like I had access to a place I should not have been allowed. And the further we get along with moving your stuff out and preparing for the sale, the worse it gets. 

I have so many memories of the place when it was just that. My home. Not of the place it has recently become. I feel like I'm in a foreign land when I enter it. I feel guilty for taking your things. Or packing them. Or for throwing away your old snowmobile suit. Which lets be honest, you should've done years ago. I feel like I'm mistreating you by doing these things. And yet they have to be done. I get physically sick going in there. I don't feel closer to you by being there. I feel like we are mistreating your memory. 

Brother says you've been to his man cave and left little momentos. It's kind of freaking him out. I'm jealous and he's scared lol! You always did love it there. 

Bella says you woke her from a dead sleep the other night and said hi B Ree with a big smile on your face and disappeared. It made her feel so good and so sad at the same time. 

None of us are the same. Your children I mean. We walk around like we are ghosts ourselves. Shells of people. The insides caving in, the parts people can't see. I run into people. Almost daily. Who say I am sorry to hear about your Dad. And I know they are, but I am just as sorry that they have to say that to me. 

When are you going to come see Brodie and I? Will you ever? 

Do you remember when we were in the kitty cat snowmobile racing circuit? And the day I won? You told me just to put the pedal to the metal and go bare fast. You said I used to tell you to go bare fast when I was little. Do you remember the year of the blizzard and you plowed a racetrack for our baby snowmobiles? Or do you not have those memories now? 

I do. And when I go to the house I try to remember them. Because it's all I have left. And it's all that keeps me from throwing up when I'm there. Because otherwise, I just end up feeling like a stranger in my own home.