Another One Bites the Dust
Saying Goodbye to ANOTHER Childhood Home
This was never meant to be a series. I just discovered that another one of the homes we lived in is gone. Completely wiped off the map, replaced with something newer, bigger, and, let’s be honest, probably lacks all the charm of the original. My mom was in real estate, so we moved a few different times, which I actually loved. Each house had its own personality, its own quirks, its own stories.
This one was at 4500 W. 64th Street in Indian Fields neighborhood in the darling upper-middle-class city of Prairie Village, Kansas. It was a fantastic house, looked small from the front, but three times the size from the back. The large bay window in the living room was one of my favorite spots, filling the house with that soft, golden Kansas light and summer breeze.
And then, of course, there’s the other story about this house.
My mom had scooped it up for next to nothing because, well… someone had killed himself in it. One day, our family attorney was over for cocktails with my mom, and he casually dropped a bombshell, the guy had shot himself in my bedroom. My bedroom. I was a kid! Who says that to a kid?! He was a prick.
But despite that eerie little backstory, I loved that house. It had character. It had history. And now, like so many others, it’s gone.
It’s funny how houses shape us, not just in memory, but in their actual, physical presence. Old homes have soul. They have history, craftsmanship, quirks that make them unique. They weren’t slapped together with mass-produced Home Depot supplies and soulless finishes. They were built with intention, with detail, with character. And don’t even get me started on the trees, huge, beautiful trees that took decades to grow, only to be ripped out for the sake of a "clean slate." I had this whole plan to drive my son by in the spring when he comes home from college, to show him one of the places that shaped my childhood, to let him see the bay window and imagine what life was like inside those walls. But now, there’s nothing left to show, just another oversized, characterless house standing where something special used to be. It’s not just about losing a home; it’s about losing a sense of place, of time, of something irreplaceable.
