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To Whom it May Concern:

If you’re a real estate agent interested in listing our house or someone who may eventually buy it, you should know something:

I still love this house. I loved it when we first moved in so many decades ago and nothing’s changed.

I
remember that hot June day when the small modest house first became our
home. It was 1968, my wife and I had both graduated from college a few
years previous, and we both embraced the American dream of home
ownership.

Of course, our parents helped out a bit, and we were
able to buy the kind of home that would be ours for years, complete with
extra bedrooms upstairs for the day that we’d choose to expand into a
family.

We spent that first summer in our new home laughing and
drinking wine on the living room floor as the record player (yes, we
used records) shouted out one Beatles song after another, with some
Doors and Janis Joplin thrown in for good measure. It’s nearly
impossible for me to walk into that room without hearing those sounds
and visualizing my wife lounging in a bean bag in her tattered jeans.

Then
the ’70’s rolled in and by the middle of that decade, we’d welcomed the
first of our three children to the house. In our backyard is an old oak
tree that still bears the scars of serving as a playground for the
children.

If you buy or list our house, you should know that the
nails in the tree came from a treehouse we built in 1979, and the scars
on the largest branch serve as a reminder of the thousands of rope
strokes that made our tree swing (made of an old tire) the centerpiece
of a play area for the neighborhood kids.

If you buy or list our
house, you should know that the dining room bears the air of a center of
higher education. Our children were all lovingly tutored there, from
the day they entered kindergarten until the end of college. That dining
room means a lot to me.

I still love this old house, especially
now that my wife and I are well into retirement. But it’s time for us to
go, transition into a smaller home, and begin the next phase of our
lives. But oh, how I love this house.

If you are the person who
buys our house, I guess I feel I needed to tell you these things because
this home is so much more than just a house to us: it’s been the
centerpiece of our entire lives, a loving nurturing place where the
memories will always live.

If you’re the real estate agent who
helps sell our home, or the lucky family that buys it, I wanted you to
understand why we may be a bit morose at times and even somewhat cranky
at the thought of leaving it. I hope you’ll honor and cherish our
memories as much as we do.

We’re ready to move on, but we ask that
you please love our home as we do. In return we promise to leave it
with a blessing and a prayer that you and your family will enjoy many
years of love, laughter, and friendships here too.

Sincerely,

The Morris Family

P.S.
We know you will probably paint and change out the floors and we would
expect that. If you can though, leave that tree in the backyard. There
is something special about. And if you ever need help raking the leaves,
just call and I’ll be happy to help even if all I can do is hold the
bag.