There is a house, not too far from my home, with a ratty yellow paint job and a wooden roof. This house lives on a small plot of land, partially surrounded with a protective ring of bushy trees, along with a crumbling barn and a scrap-wood shed. The grass is mostly yellowed with age, although it grows in wild bushes throughout the yard. There is trace of an old garden, only slightly visible through the spouts of grass. The house and its yard seem to be frozen in time, waiting for the owner to some day return.

When I first looked at this house, I saw its flaws: its windows were burst, the door missing. The building leaned ever so slightly to the side, like a lob sided tree, and couldn’t have housed more than three rooms. The yard looked horribly out of control- completely fruitless- and the building’s faulty foundation far past saving. While I looked upon this yard from my car window, only visible for a few minutes before the trees block it from sight, I noticed that the building had an air of history to it. It almost seemed as though the former lives to inhabit the old house years ago still wandered its creaky halls, lounged on its rotten deck, and played in the dying yard. It was then that I realized that the crumbling house didn’t seem sad. The house looked as though it were remembering its long line of homeowners. Maybe, I thought, this house isn’t everything it seems to be.


Maybe this house is not outdated- maybe it was once new and stylish. Its builders, maybe a middle aged couple finally reaping years of dedicated farming, poured their life long savings into building this house. The yellow paint was just in- newer and more in style than any other colour. The house was built on a dream spot- it had a view people would pay to see. It over looked an eternity of fruitful crops.

Maybe this house isn’t past saving- it was once worth building onto. The next owners built on a porch and deck to add to the building’s beauty. They repainted the window frames and re shingled the roof. This house was magnificent and posh- a family’s dream and the weathy’s reality.

This house doesn’t look like it is mourning the loss of inhabitants, with its foundation sighing to the right and the wood fading to a grey; it is remembering the foreigners whom bought this house as a means of a new life- a place to start over. This was their first purchase in the new land, and the first of many good memories in a nation full of promise.

This house isn’t at its end; this house was a beginning for the young couple in the 70’s who settled there when they became pregnant. This house wasn’t old- it housed the new, the young, a future. It was a beginning for a young life that would soon grow to be a doctor, a musician, a scientist. It was the beginning of an inspiring story.




When I look at this house now, I see all that this house once was, not what it can no longer be. This house isn’t merely a shack forgotten out in the middle of a field. This house was cherished, valued, and beautiful.

This house is not an old building that not stands alone in a piece of land forgotten by time. It was, and still is, a home. Its halls still ring with laughter, the bedrooms with countless nights, and that porch still occupied with the elderly couple to have built its still proud corridors.

Most importantly, this house is not all it seems to be when one first looks upon it. This house, this house was once a mansion, an escape, a beginning. This house is a lot like a person- we often judge right on the spot what a person is like. It’s only when we take the time to really look at who they are that we see their value.