Rubble And Reverence: The Splinters Of A Home, The Echoes Of A Life

I wonder what lingers within that house—the structure that once held back the wind, the rain, and the snow, yet could never contain the storm that raged inside. The walls stood, unmoving, as fury cracked like lightning in the spaces between us, as resentment pooled in the foundation like standing water, never draining, never drying. I wonder if the wood, the nails, the shingles—the entire fragile skeleton of that place I cannot bring myself to call a home—still vibrates with the echoes of everything even time cannot erase.

There were Saturday mornings spent playing Risk, days lost in the flickering glow of VHS tapes and N64 marathons. There was laughter, small and fleeting, buried under layers of something heavier. Which version of us still lingers there?

Is it the innocent chorus of giggles, the warmth of a wife asking her husband about his day, the murmur of a family gathered for Friday movie night? Do those echoes still dance in the dust, refusing to fade? Or is it the daughter screaming accusations down a narrow hallway, the mother covering for a son’s cruelty, the father retreating—hiding behind denial as his family burned—that has been left in that place?

Some days, I dream of tearing it apart, ripping through the drywall with my bare hands, sifting through the wreckage in search of an answer to the questions that haunt me. Some nights, I imagine myself a ghost, drifting through those hollow rooms, pressing my palm to the faded wallpaper, searching for what was left behind.

What did we leave there? What is it all worth?

If I ever get the chance, I will buy that house, and I will level it to the ground. I will watch as the walls collapse, as the beams splinter, as the foundation cracks open like a ribcage, exposing every buried horror to the light. I will stand before the wreckage as the dust settles, as the earth swallows what should never have stood in the first place, and I will not mourn. I will let it burn, let the heat sear through the history trapped within its frame, let the flames consume every whisper of what we endured until nothing remains but ash. I will tell myself that this is catharsis. That this is the ritual I was denied. That this is how I eradicate the poison, how I cauterize the wound, how I purge the sickness of that place from my marrow. Let the fire scorch it out, let the weight of it irradiate from my bones, let the ghosts scream as they are incinerated—until all that’s left is silence.

But would it be enough?

How do you reconcile the good with the pain? How do you cradle the bright moments in your hands while letting the torment slip through your fingers? And when you finally open your hands—when it is all said and done—what is left? Hope? The cruelest tormentor of all? Forgiveness? Forgiveness can exist without forgetting, and I believe it should.

Because forgetting makes you vulnerable. Forgetting allows history to repeat, forces you into a cycle where the only apology owed is to yourself.

Maybe true freedom isn’t found in destruction but in surrender. Maybe the best therapy isn’t in the burning or the burying—but in letting go. In prying your fingers apart and spilling it all onto the earth, refusing to carry it one step further.

And when I do, when I am finally ready, this will be the eulogy I will write:

Here lies a house.

Not a home—never a home—but a structure, a hollow body, a thing that stood where love should have lived. It kept out the cold but let the frost in, let the walls ice over, let the warmth slip through the cracks. It held us, not in comfort but in confinement, a stage for stories no child should have to tell.

Here lies the laughter that tried to grow in poisoned soil, the joy that flickered and fought to survive in the airless dark. Here lies the sound of dice tumbling onto a wooden table, the hum of a VHS rewinding, the glow of an N64 in the dim light of a Saturday night. Here lies the echoes of what could have been, drowned beneath the weight of what was.

Here lies the girl who tried to love it, who traced patterns in the dust, who imagined the walls could hold kindness if she just stood still long enough, if she just softened herself enough, if she just waited, if she just stayed.

Here lies the screams that were swallowed, the truths that were buried, the prayers that went unanswered. The slamming doors, the silences that cut deeper than words ever could, the footsteps on the stairs that meant danger, the nights spent bracing for impact.

Here lies the mother who covered up abuse, the father who retreated, the brother who did not care to hide the cruelty in his hands. Here lies the moments that should have mattered but were drowned beneath the tide of everything that hurt more. The birthdays that felt like battlefields. The holidays that hung heavy with unspoken tensions. The mornings that started in fear, the nights that ended in exhaustion.

Here lies the hope that was stubborn enough to linger, even when it had nowhere left to go.

And here stands the woman who walks away.

Not with anger, not with vengeance, not with a heart hardened by the past—but with grief. With the kind of sorrow that stretches through time, that bends the spine, that makes the breath shallow and the bones weary. With the ache of what was stolen, what was warped, what was never given a chance to be something whole.

Here lies a house. Let the earth take it back. Let the wind carry away the dust. Let the rain cleanse what fire could not.

And let me go with it.