HOUSE INSPECTION

A friend is buying the house next door to ours…

and yesterday I was transfixed

as inspectors came to scrutinized that house

an tell her what needed fixed. 

After 50 years of service…

that house proudly stood while they inspected…

they turned in a 60 page report…

of all the things that need corrected.

As I watched them it made me wonder…I was moved to introspection…

if this old house we live in…could pass such close inspection.

After 30 years of living here I am painfully aware

like all of us…this old house shows it’s wear and tear.

The laundry room’s still incomplete…the French doors stick after a rain.

And why some of the light switches work in reverse is difficult to explain…

I’m sure the wiring’s not up to code..and there’s that upside down hanging door,

our plumbing runs through the attic…theirs cracks in the ceiling and the floor.

But when I looked up to count the cracks…I was overcome by a wonderful feeling

of how we raised three children here…despite the cracks in this old ceiling.

And I started thinking how my house inspection is anything but routine…

how I need to consider the laughter…the tears…and the love this house has seen.

When I inspect my house I’m not thinking price…I’m thinking value…because

we’ve come to love this old place in spite of all her flaws.

And herein lies the difference…

What an inspector might see as defects in this old outmoded space

I see more as wrinkles…like the ones upon my face.

Where an inspector sees the flaws in my house as through these halls he roams

I see a house with character…I see family…I see home.