Echoes of a Family Life

By Frank King

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you
that I go to prepare a place for you? John 14:2 (ESV)

Recently we moved out of a home that we had occupied for 38 years. The move was a very busy time as we sorted the stuff we were keeping from the stuff we were discarding. It is amazing how much stuff we hang onto that will never be used or needed; and even though we know we won’t need it, it’s amazing how difficult it is to discard.

The final day in the house, after all was moved and cleaned and ready for the new owner, as I waited for the agent to come pick up the keys, I stood in the middle of the living room and experienced the unique sensation of an empty house.

There is something about an empty house that you feel beyond the five senses.

It is a condition rather than a sensation. There is an echo in an empty house that is unlike any other sound.

I remember that sensation the day we moved in. The realtor handed us the key, and we unlocked the front door, walked in and spoke our first words in our new home. Those words echoed off walls empty of the life we were about to begin.

There were no photos, sconces, shelves or mirrors on the walls to bounce the echo. There were no rugs, drapes or furniture to absorb the sound.

There was just that first echo, quickly dying in the emptiness.

That echo would be followed by a million others: echoes of joy and sorrow that make up a family life.

I remember the bedroom cry of a new born baby laid across his 3 year old sisters’ lap.

I recall the shock and then the laughter when that sister one day removed her little brother from his crib and replaced him with her Cabbage Patch doll.

I still hear the living room echo of siblings screams as they fought over unshared toys, and the sounds of appreciation as they gave and received gifts.

There were kitchen echoes of parties celebrating birthdays, holidays and other joyous occasions, and the somber silence of mourning family members who had passed.

I remember the sound of neighbors’ parties that kept us awake till all hours, and the sounds of those same neighbors asking us for prayer for their wayward children.

The sounds of the remodeling crew as we expanded. The bittersweet sound of possessions being moved as children went away to college, marriage and overseas missions.

The joyful kitchen sound of nine grandkids laughing as they baked cookies with Grandma, and weeping as they realized that Grandma’s house was not going to be Grandma’s house anymore.

I remembered all those sounds as I stood in the middle of the room and heard that empty echo die for the last time as the agent called out to me, arriving to take possession of our house.

I handed him the key and left, and the door closed behind me, echoing the sound of an empty house.

But as I drove out of the old neighborhood I heard a still, small voice telling me that these are not the last echoes of our life. They are just the last sounds of a chapter.

As we enter that next chapter, we look forward to creating new echoes with new friends and neighbors and, if God wills it, great-grandchildren who will laugh and cry and make cookies in our new home.

And some day, if we persevere, we will enter our final home, free of crying and sorrow and hurt, and filled with the presence of our Savior Jesus, and with the echo of everlasting joy.