I don’t know what made me think a house was forever. Perhaps I’ve imagined that only I am temporary. Death aside, I always seem to be.  Remember that adage that says ‘you can never go home again’ ? Well it’s true. Tonight I learned that my grandmother’s house burned down. I can barely swallow this charred truth.

Even though she has long since recycled back into the dust from which she came, I’d still return to visit Grandma back in tornado alley. Her soul danced among the flowers and cattails that graced the streambed that ran through her property. As a little girl, we used to rise long before the sun and sit beside the water awaiting it’s golden arrival. But first we did her hair.

She had the longest, blackest hair I have ever seen.  All the way down to her calves, it took 17 tortoise shell combs to mount her single braid into the Eiffel tower she wore for a hundred years. On hot nights, we caught lightening bugs - each delicately pushed into her hair to form her sparkly tiara. The rest went into our own braids, transforming each of us girls into her fairy maids. That’s what she called us.

Her castle was little more than a whitewashed shack. She alone had no cellar, though her house stood for more than a century while the resident mansions lost limbs to twisters. Somehow her humble little abode always managed to survive.

Until today.

What is it that imbues a house with such magic? The tenacity to weather storms, both external and internal? The irreverence to stand up against forces both seen and unseen that threaten to tear down the walls? God knows, I can barely remain standing when the winds of change threaten.

It’s the foundation, I’ve learned. And not the 12 inches on center post and beam, but the kind we build with love. The lasting kind. The kind that gives structure to who we are and stands as a monument to those who made us.

Forever will remain. Her house isn’t really gone after all.