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Can a house be a member of your family?

From June 2021 to July 2025, both of our families also tried not to take for granted our proximity to one another, even though my brother was sent on a few different deployments so it felt like he was only present for half that time. To be able to be together for holidays and sleepovers and summer camps and day trips to the park and the library was a godsend for all of us, especially for three little cousins, who were 4, 4, and 1.5 years old at the start, and got to grow up alongside each other for essentially half of their young lives.

So when they moved away last summer, back to South Carolina, their absence has left a big hole in our lives, one that we are still processing as we begin our seventh year as Washingtonians.

And that house on Geer Lane, where all kinds of memories were made? More on that in a bit.

Geer Lane, located on Fidalgo Island, sits on the lands of the Samish peoples, as well as the nations of Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Semiahmoo, S’Klallam, Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group, Upper Skagit, and Sauk Suiattle, who inhabited these lands before white people settled here, and who still live here today.

Image: The first visit back to an empty house, displeased. July 2025.

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