Saying Goodbye to my Childhood Home

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I said goodbye to my childhood home a few weeks back.

I also said goodbye to my grandparents home at the same time. Like it wasn’t bad enough already saying goodbye to one home…UFDA!

It was happy, it was sad, and there were a lot of tears, laughs, drinks, games, bonfires, toasts, and hugs. It was overall a totally emotional weekend, but I couldn’t have thought of any better way to say goodbye than a big Bergland bash, during the local county fair, and on my grandpa’s 90th birthday.

The coolest part about both my parents and grandparents (whom are my dad’s parents) packing up their homes at the same time was that all our family was there. … Besides my brother Noah (who is incarcerated), and my cousin Tommy (that was out in NY and couldn’t make it).

My grandparents have seven kids. I’ve always been so proud to say that I come from a family where we all come home for the holidays, even the grandkids. The older I get and start to see other families starting their own traditions but yet all my family comes home, I realize that’s not normal. That’s actually insane and I’m feeling so damn lucky.

This road right here is Bergland row.

My childhood home is next door to my dad’s two sisters, his parents, and his niece and their families.

We all live on the same road, river behind us, and the golf course out front. And when I tell people that, they think I’m kidding. So I already know that I have been super privileged.

That’s not normal, so as you can tell it’s super sad to take two of those homes out of “Bergland row” and say goodbye. Not sure what it will be like to come back home again. It’s going to be weird. Real weird, but it’ll be just fine.

This picture was snapped by the family that bought our home… how cool is that, that he snapped this shot while up in the sky?!

Being my brother Jesse and I live down in the cities, my mom is moving down here to be closer to her kids.  Which has got us all pretty excited. Not gonna lie, I’m pumped to have a full-time house cleaner close. Haha! Jk, Mom, but not really.

My dad died back in 2007, which was 11 years ago and that’s still so crazy to me. Without thinking, I told someone the other day that he died a few years ago because to me it feels like he was just here the other day. I talk and dream about him often, and anytime our family is together it always feels like we’re missing someone. Because we are. It feels like he left our family yesterday, yet at the same time, a million years ago.

Since my dad died, my mom has been living in our home by herself for quite some time now. After my brothers and I graduated from high school, my parents worked their booties off to put us all through college. Shortly after my little brother graduated from the University of Minnesota, my dad died. After my dad died, my little brother, Noah, quickly got into trouble with the law, so my mom never moved forward as she put her life on hold to take care of him. During that time, my brother had an adorable little girl so when it came time for Noah to start serving his sentence, she put her life on hold to take care of my niece, yet again, without question.

So for the majority of these past 11 years, my mom has put her entire life on hold for her family while living without my dad’s help. I guess that’s what moms do, right?

They sacrifice everything for their family. So I’m quite proud of her to take the leap and do something for herself for once.

My mom is packing up her bags and moving into a home in Minnetonka, after being born, raised, and living in Roseau for her entire life. I can’t imagine how big of a deal this is for her!

My mom’s not a super emotional person, which is where I get that side of me and although she holds everything in, I know it’s a big deal and I’m sure she has her private moments. Her sisters, brother, kids, and grandchildren all live here in the metro, so it’s about time she’s close to all of us. And hey, maybe now she’ll find herself a man to take care of her for once. Hehe.

But it’s still hard to say goodbye to my childhood home… 

My grandparents are moving into assisted living. My grandpa went into the nursing home over a year ago and hasn’t been able to come home. The only way he could come home was with help, which means my grandma is packing up her bags and getting back to her hubby again.

My grandparents have a pretty large home and it’s the perfect home for entertaining, which is why they built it that way, to gather our family. They knew the open concept design before it was even a stylish thing, ha! Selfishly, the first thought that crossed my mind when I heard my grandparents were moving was… “where are we going to have Thanksgiving?!” But then my grandma came down to Minneapolis the following weekend after I heard the news and when I asked her how she was doing she said without one doubt in her mind, “I’m ready to be with grandpa again.” My heart broke. And here I was so selfish, thinking about my two homes that hold so many of my memories, but only come home to a few times a year. Here she and my mom were living every day in these large, empty homes by themselves.

 

 

I tried to capture every room of my grandparents and my parents home because I never want to forget all of the memories that each room holds. Many, many family dinners were held right here at this table. And when all the family was home, we put card tables from this table straight on down out the door into the other room.

The porch at my grandparent’s house was the outdoor fridge in the winter where we’d all go back for 2nds, 3rds and 4ths… while playing cards with grandma until 2:00 am.

The driving range my grandparents built in their basement for our family and friends to practice during the winter.

I shared saying goodbye to these childhood homes of mine on Instagram and got so many sweet comments. One of which was my friend Liza who said, “Be gentle with yourself friend. Lots of emotions- feel them all. Bug hugs.”

Not gonna lie, the majority of my life I’ve held in all the feels in and people that have known me from a young age think I never cry. But now, ask my husband and he will say I cry every other day. But when my girlfriend reminded me to feel it, it never felt so good. I felt it all and was ok with saying goodbye. My aunt also reminded me to take as many pictures and videos as I could and I did.

This was my dad’s workshop… and shed. It had a sign over the door saying “dad’s shop” until just recently.

This was the view of our home from the river. And just on the other side of the river was our city park.

The garden that grew all of my grandma and cousin’s fresh amazing salsa and raspberries.

This is the entrance into our home from the garage. Prior to my family being in this home, my aunt and uncle lived in it, and prior to that my grandparents. And family after family it all got added on onto. I remember my dad building the garage and my brother Jesse stepping on a nail. My uncle told me him and my dad put a time capsule into the ceiling of the playroom… that room down to the right. ha! It’ll be funny to see who finds that one day. I know the new homeowners will be renovating the entire place. It might just be them!

Our dining room where we spent every single Christmas eve…

This was my room…all emptied and cleaned out.

And my grandpa’s basement workshop where he buit all of his planes. One of Greyson’s favorite rooms.

And his outdoor workshop. Where my cousins lived after they got married and where my grandparents lived while they were building their forever dream home.

And not only were we packing and cleaning all weekend but it was the local Roseau county fair that I would never miss. 33 years going strong!

The kids had so much fun. It was nearly impossible to get Beckam off the rides…

And a ton of my friends were all home so it felt like a big ‘ol class reunion. Man, I miss these guys!

It was the perfect weekend. Laughing, crying, hugging, toasting, cleaning, and going through boxes and boxes and boxes of photos and talking through memories with those I love the most. That was the perfect way to say goodbye to home.

And it also reminded me just how dang cool my family is. They’ve all done some really neat things. I always knew that but don’t think I fully realized it until we were going through pictures, magazines, newspapers, and letters to and from one another.

Sad to say goodbye but happy these homes got handed over to some really good families. Can’t wait to go home again and just see what the new homeowners do to both of these spaces!

While I was living in California I’ll never forget one time talking to my dad on the phone. I was telling him about my flight itinerary, when I was flying into MN and back to CA. When talking about flying back to CA I said, “my flight back home is…” and he stopped me mid convo and said… “CA is not your home. Roseau will always be your home. Don’t ever forget that.”And I never have.

No matter if my childhood home is there or not, Roseau will forever be my home. The community, the people, the memories… it will always be the place that I go back to that keeps me grounded, where you go to the C-store and everyone knows your name, where it takes you 30 seconds to get to the grocery store but 2 hours to get through it because you stop and talk to everyone, the place where you always get a warm and tight hug from strangers, the place where you can have a really good time doing nothing, have a cop call you by the first name and drive you home without question, and have a REALLY good breakfast and Hi-boy.

Roseau is my home and will always remind me where good people are and what life is all about.