“I’ve got some… uhhhhh…. weird news to tell ya…” my dad hesitated over the phone. 

“Weird news?” I asked as my heart skipped a beat, “Elaborate.”

“Grandma Shirley’s house burned down.”

“Burned down?!”

“Yeah. It’s a total loss. The whole house was engulfed in flames.”

“Is everyone okay?” I asked, panicked, “Was anyone home?”

“Oh yeah. Everyone’s okay.” Dad replied, “Nobody was home when the fire started. But somebody noticed the smoke and called it in.”

“Wow, holy shit!” I raised my eyebrows, “We always half-joked that house would burn down someday. I never really expected it to actually happen though.”

“I know, right?” Dad agreed, “It’s crazy how that happened.”

“I’m just glad nobody was in the house when it started.”

“So am I.”

“So, what’s Andy [my cousin] gonna do now? Will he rebuild? Was the house insured?”

“He’s got a mortgage, so the house was definitely insured,” Dad answered, “I’d assume then he’d rebuild, but who knows? He may just put a prefab on the foundation and call it good. It’s up to him.”

“Well…” I sighed, “I’m glad everyone’s okay. Sucks that it happened, but I’m not really shocked that it did, y’know?”

“Mmmmhmmmm.” Dad nodded, “I’m surprised that house lasted as long as it did in the condition it was in.”

“Honestly, so am I.” I said, “So am I…”

After I put the phone down, I took a minute to calm myself down. I wasn’t (and am still not) really upset about the farmhouse. But, I must have some PTSD from all the times my dad’s called to give me terrible news about the family, as I was shivering from the adrenaline rush after the phone call. However, compared to those phone calls, this one was nothing. 

After all, it’s just a house. Right?

Well… in a real sense, yeah. It was just a house; a house destined for demolition unless someone sank tens of thousands of dollars into fully restoring it. But, in a more… spiritual sense, it wasn’t just a house. 

That place had been in my family ever since my ancestors first came to the United States in the early 1900s. My family didn’t build the Victorian-style farmhouse, but they moved in and made it their own for the next 120 years, passing it down from one generation to the next. My grandpa Bob first moved into the house when was a toddler, and he died there at the age of 76 in May of 2018. My grandma Shirley, whom I was very close with, also passed away in that house in 2021 after a short battle with cancer. 

Both grandparents departed into the next life surrounded by family and friends, under the roof of that old farmhouse, just as they wanted. What a beautiful way to go...

But, prior to their deaths, my grandparents loved that place very, very much. Because they loved it so much, everyone else in the family loved it too. And my family promised to keep the farmhouse in the family for as long as it stood. 

I’ve many, many fond memories from that house, which hardly ever changed since the day my ancestors first bought it. Indeed, that house only ever changed cosmetically. It’s hardware was only updated once or twice to accommodate an indoor bathroom and kitchen appliances sometime in the 60s or 70s. But everything else stayed almost exactly the same the whole time my family kept it.

Oh… if only that house could talk. 

In some ways, it actually could. Orange shag carpet upstairs covered original wood flooring. Shoddily-glued wallpaper from the 70s and 80s peeled back to reveal floral wallpaper from as far back as the 1910s. In places where paint and wallpaper had chipped off, horse-hair lathe and straw insulation stuck out of the plaster like needles of a cactus. The woodstove still sat rusty yet functional in the main room. The original solid wood doors made a distinctive creaking noise whenever they were opened and closed. And I still remember hearing the house hum at night as I was falling asleep. 

Speaking of which, I absolutely hated being anywhere in the house by myself, especially at night when there wasn't enough ambience to drown out the eerie humming. I mean... there's a reason why I could only fall asleep when I had reruns of Ridiculousness playing on the TV with the volume turned up. 

For as long as I remember, we half-joked that house was haunted. As much as I love science and find shows like Ghost Adventures totally stupid and made-up, a part of me genuinely believes that house really was haunted. After all, everyone in my family (myself included) have experienced lots of weird shit in that house over the years. And even my dad, who still claims to be an atheist to this day, thought there was something other than old wiring issues that made that house “spooky”. 

That said, I recognize that warped floorboards and severe wiring issues can make anyone feel like they’re being watched. Haunted or not, there really was something seriously wrong with that house that everyone could sense, but couldn’t really explain, let alone fix. Unfortunately, the problem was ignored till now… now that it’s too late. 

But, like almost everything, there’s a major silver lining to this event. 

Nobody was home when the house literally burst into flames. Given its age and condition (and the fact that it didn’t have any working smoke alarms), had the fire started with my family there, it absolutely would’ve ended a hell of a lot worse. In that sense, it’s just a house. A house with lots of history and stories to tell. But, just a house nonetheless. 

My cousin and his family are perfectly safe, and they're the ones who made that house a home, just like how grandma and grandpa made it theirs. 

I mean… almost exactly one year ago, I wrote this:

“When grandma and grandpa were alive, that house felt alive. It felt like grandma and grandpa's… However, with grandma and grandpa gone, it no longer felt like the magical place I'd grown up visiting…. It just felt like any old farmhouse... only stranger, because it was grandma and grandpa's farm. It was the same farm that had been in my family for over a century. And yet... it just didn't feel like it anymore….”

So, I can’t say I feel too bad about the loss of the old farmhouse, as historically significant and iconic as it was. The farmhouse was, indeed, just an old farmhouse that none of us expected to last much longer. If a fire didn’t take it out, surely a wrecking ball would’ve sooner or later.

What truly matters is the fact that nobody was home. Houses can be rebuilt, items can be replaced, memories can be… well… remembered. But people are irreplaceable. Had that fire happened when the house was occupied… ah, let’s not go there. Instead, I’m just thankful to the Lord above that this fire happened when and how it did. 

Here's the news article with pictures of the farmhouse as it burned. You can see the woodstove in one of the pictures.