Dear Trailer Park,

I guess when getting ready to depart from your gravel paths, I am becoming, somehow, a little emotional about leaving your potholes behind.  I once heard someone tell a story of a young girl the mother didn’t want her daughter to be friends with, her excuse to the daughter (?), because “she lives in a trailer and YOU don’t!”.  Unfortunately, the bougie brigade of society will only ever see rows of desperation and trouble instead of opportunity and worth.  

All those years ago, here I was a single mom with two small children, a low income job, and living with my in-laws, we desperately needed somewhere of our own.  There aren’t  many homes out there that are affordable in the tax bracket I was signed up for so up to the plate steps the “trailer park”.  Duh-duh-ta-duh!  The winds may have been dusty and the cats galore, but you were ours to make our own as long as I paid the lot rent each month, we were together, the three of us (Me, Morgan, and Matthew - mi familia). You were witness to our beginnings and watched as we made mistakes that led to uncomfortable conversations at times.  You were there for the good, the bad and the funny.   I can still see Stinky all upset that the Christmas lights weren’t working because he didn’t realize he had to plug them into the wall for the power, he stood there just plugging one end into the other saying, “see they don’t work!”.  Every time I touch that certain light switch I can still see Moody falling in what only can be described as slow motion, and how it felt to be suspended in time for even a brief moment with my Mongrels. 

For all the laughs, the tears, the tragedies we endured in this rectangular home, I will forever be grateful to you, Trailer Park, for being our home and allowing us the opportunity to grow together to become this family that I treasure so dearly.  Now, as I look around this trailer, that holds most of my cherished memories of life, my heart breaks a little to leave them behind, but just because there are a few extra tears at the end of one chapter doesn’t mean there won’t be smiles leading into the next.  

With humble regards, 

M.E.