Gone. Everything’s gone. The tables, the chairs, the couches and the beds. Nothing is in its place. The walls are bare. The floors are swept clean. The lights are off forever. The water isn't running. The heat isn't on. This was my home, until a month ago. Now all that lives here are the spiders in the eves, the flies in the air, and the rats (probably) beneath the house. After spending almost eight years there, living, eating, and sleeping, it just looked wrong. The walls seem bare and too white, there seems to be too much room everywhere, and everything was too dark. It sounded wrong as well; echoing and clear, with air too thin without the human presence. It even smelled too sterile; as if nothing had lived there for years.

Though no one ever said it, our family had been foreclosed on. It was always danced around, synonym-ed and replaced. We moved slowly out of the house as I watched my past life seem to disintegrate from under me. The bed I had slept on last night was gone, replaced for a while with an air mattress before it was moved to our “new” house. The chairs around the table vanished, followed by the table a few days later.

Now it was all gone. We were living in another house, one an old family friend let us live in. But I was in that old house, taking a few last things out of the garage, taking a last, nostalgic stroll through the hall. I remembered the jokes, tears and everyday things that took place in those rooms now empty. It's strange, really, how a place can hold so many emotions.

People often ask what the walls would say if they could speak, but they can't. So people have to speak for them. These days, people could lose their home at the drop of a hat. So they must make every second count, embrace every moment, and always be ready for what seems impossible. I wasn't ready, not really. While I have come to terms with the shock of what I lost, I now realize that nothing is ever gone. It only changes, moves, and transforms. The walls no longer hold emotion for me. I hold them, and I am at peace with what is gone.