The papers are signed. The check is deposited. The keys are passed along. We finally own only one house once more. After a whole week of late, late nights, calling in every babysitting favor I would have rather used on a date night and fingers that are cracked and stained with newsprint, we emptied the house and moved things to the various locations where they needed to go.

I suppose I should be happy to have this behind me, and I am, but mostly I'm tired and seeing all those empty rooms where my children once danced and sang and screamed and cried and cooed made me very sad. The couple who now owns our old house has no children. The house won't echo with pounding footsteps or little voices.

Perhaps I am too influenced by Virginia Lee Burton's The Little House, but it almost seems as if that old house was alive while we were there. I just don't know if its new owners will love it or care for it as we did and with out children running around, how can it possibly be as alive? My children, far more than I, bring life to the world around them, and so I think do all children.

I know that some day, The Purple House, will ring with their loud, loud footsteps, shouts and songs. It will be the new family homestead and we, as a family, will bring life to that house which sat lonely and neglected for far too long. But right now I feel a touch of sadness and mourning for the house we've left behind.