After six generations, the Old Yellow House is still standing strong. It stands strong like the scent of sizzling bacon that lures you out of bed to stumble down those sturdy stairs. Strong like the rope swing's death grip hanging from a canopy of sighing trees in the vast backyard. Strong like the wind blowing off the lake and through your hair.

The laid-back Victorian style welcomes visitors in, just as hot apple cider welcomes autumn. The masculine, dark wood dining room table has come to know the bodies of my relatives as we sit around it eating, talking, playing cards. The cheerful yellow kitchen is caught up in a whirlwind of innocence, making it a simple place to sit and enjoy the morning. The bunk bedroom still echoes with the non-stop giggling heard by our parents as my cousins, siblings and I supposedly “fell asleep.”

Bound by my family's heritage, the Old Yellow House on White Lake is our anchor. Frozen in time, it harbors the memories of a past I am not familiar with. A past of grandfather clocks ticking as the women of the house tend to chores. A past of pumping your own water out of the bright red pump behind the house. A past of saying too many farewells to war-bound relatives on the green wooden porch. It is the memory keeper of my ancestors, refusing to let go of its hold on time. Because if the Old Yellow House loosens its rein on the past, who will be there to remember it?