Thatsathought’s Weblog

Our family home in Summerville, where I spent 19 wonderful years of my life, has been sold. My parents got divorced last year, my three brothers are scattered between seminary, working, and college, and I have a family of my own. There was no need for Mom to continue to live in such a large house. God is doing new and exciting things in each of our lives right now, so this is a tremendous blessing. However, it will be very hard for the Jacobs Family to close the door and turn over the key to 510 Mayfield Street.

It was a big house, even for a family of six, but it was the perfect house for four kids to grow up in and make mischief. In fact, just this past weekend my brother Greg and I were reminiscing and I finally confirmed that he did in fact sneak a keg into his room without my parents ever finding out.  I also heard rumors that my three brothers used to take their bikes to the doorstep of the back porch and ride down the hill of our backyard—which is VERY long and steep and has cement stairs leading all the way down to the bottom, which ends in the Ashley River, which houses plenty of alligators and snakes!!! Now that I’m a Mom myself, this story makes my heart skip a few beats!

Another funny memory is the time when my youngest brother Jeffrey, who was about 4 years old, went mysteriously missing. Everyone assumed he was with someone else, but once we realized that he wasn’t with anyone, a full-on neighborhood search began. My Mom was probably approaching the point of panic when one of my other brothers found him…asleep behind the couch! Since we had just moved in, I suppose he didn’t know which room was his so he picked a space of his own. Apparently the space behind the couch was all he needed!

I remember the day when I was enjoying lying on a raft in the pool with my brand new belly button ring—that my parents didn’t know about—when I was suddenly surprised by my Dad’s unexpected return from work. When he came out to tell me he was home I flipped right off that raft and into the water faster than you could say “Boo!” Needless to say, my Dad ended up taking out that belly button ring…

When I think of Mayfield, I think of happy family meals, my Mom always busy in the kitchen, neighborhood friends stopping by, big blow-out birthday parties that every kid wishes for, holidays where gifts seemed to flow out of every room in the house, getting ready for Prom in my parent’s bedroom, my brothers shooting snakes in the driveway with their BB guns (yes, we are a little white trash), sneaking out and sitting on the highest part of the roof at night, decorating for Christmas each year with millions of lights and luminaries, my brothers doing wild and crazy dives off the diving board that made your heart stop, sitting in the jacuzzi and then jumping in the pool, painting my first mural on my bedroom wall (my parents were NOT exactly supportive of my murals at that point), doing homework at our dining room table, having my Mom bring me special treats while I studied for exams in my room, and 19 years’ worth of many more happy memories.

I also remember the day I came home from Summer Beach Project my Senior year of college to find that my Dad had moved out. I knew the house was never going to be the same again. And it hasn’t been. It’s a shell of what it used to be. That’s why I’m thrilled for my Mom to be moving out and moving on. She no longer has to be the keeper of the museum of memories for our family. We can all close the door and embrace the new season God has set before us.

“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18-19