A house is a simple structure, to serve as shelter and protection. It's built from wood, brick, steel, blood, and sweat. Though a house is more than just those simple building ingredients, it's full of secrets and memories, for I am a house.

I was built two hundred years ago, in a small village that slowly became known as Cannington. Over the years, I've experienced human emotions, since I've felt what they've felt, heard what they have heard. I have been able to have a solid grasp on human emotion.

The Wilkinson's moved in on a nice late September day of the year 1994. I felt them grow, change, become themselves in the span of eleven years most of the time I felt happiness, love and laughter until the feeling inside me drastically changed. Grief had never hung over my structure so heavily before. A dear friend of my family had passed away suddenly. Everybody went to bed crying that night and many nights after. My family had felt loss before but never this strongly. Other deaths had been trivial, just as significant as passing glances between strangers. This however this was bigger, bigger than the whole world it seemed.

Even though three years have passed since that day I can still feel the emptiness that person had left. As a house I cannot sympathize for my family, but I can feel their pain and if houses could have emotions I would have ached along with them.

The youngest mistress has been very torn up over this death. She normally never cries, though this time around she cried three times in one day. Cried when she found out, cried while talking on the computer, and even cried herself to sleep for a couple of nights.

The funeral gave her some closure; apparently it had been very well done and beautiful. She stopped crying after that, but the emptiness would never leave. A fun friend had died and that never seems to truly heal.

Slowly joy started to replace the fog of grief inside me after a few weeks of the death. The young mistress was graduating from grade school. One day she dressed up for the event in a beautiful powder blue gown and had her hair all done up. I could feel her pride just reverberating from her. The fact she'd made it to this point in her life just astounded her. Ten years of school had led her up to this, to another chapter in her life…to a bigger school with different kids.

The young mistress was apprehensive about high school. It was a different beginning for her. She wasn't worried about what people would think of her, her subjects, or even the teachers, she was more afraid of getting lost inside the school and not being able to find her classes. Of course, everything went absolutely perfectly. The young mistress had nothing to worry about. She finished her first year of high school with passing marks and even found new friends along the way.

As a house I've been around long enough to understand that people learn and grow into themselves. Losing people, graduating, and going somewhere new is always sad, scary, and exciting.

A house stands through it all, forever a safe haven whenever a person is feeling bad or sad.