When I was a baby, my parents and I lived in a single-wide trailer. My earliest memory is of waking in the night to the cry of my baby sister, born in the room at the end of the hall. I was three and a half. My dad built an adobe house from dirt that was on our one acre of land. When I was about four, we moved into the new house. I still remember the day my old house drove away. I stood in the yard and watched it go: my first home.

Twenty years later, my husband and I ordered a manufactured home to put on our half acre of land. On the day of arrival, I was helping a friend in a neighboring town when I saw my new home pass by. With excitement, I jumped into our truck and followed it, taking pictures as I drove. As they backed it in, I recalled that childhood day when my house drove away, and how then my new home was driving in. I thought that was a full circle moment.

Six years later, we put our home up for sale so we could relocate for my husband’s career. As I packed our belongings, I kept thinking about how much I had loved that house. It was the first home that was our very own. It was the place where I took my tiny babies home from the hospital. Then one last time we knelt together in a circle in the family room (with nothing left in it but my family) and thanked God for the sweet memories made there. As we drove away, my four-year-old and I waving, “Good-bye, House! We love you,” I realized that was really the full circle.