At the end of 2007, the United States went through a mortgage crisis that lasted until June of 2009. The Subprime Mortgage Crisis resulted in houses losing their value price on their property, which was the cause of the housing bubble. Because of this, many people lost their homes to foreclosures and were left homeless.
Around this time, my parents bought a house on the southside of Chicago in the Brighton Park neighborhood. It was in September 2007 and I had just entered the fourth grade. I still remember the first night I spent at the house. I thought it was so beautiful and big. We had nothing to fill the vacancy of the rooms because we had always rented and never had a place of our own. I told my parents to go back to the garbage and get some of the stuff we threw out because we needed to fill the house with stuff since it was so empty. I finally had my own room and my own bed, the ex-owner was kind enough to leave a bed and many other things.
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I moved in here at the age of 8, ten years I have lived here, and soon it'll all be over.
For a long time, my parents struggled with the house and bill payments. It wasn't easy for them to pay because it was just so much money that ideally, we did not have. They filed for a mortgage modification different times to try and lower the mortgage cost because it was too high. My parents went to court many times to try and have this settled, and even went to court because the house was going to be taken away from us at a point in time - the house was already on foreclosure without us knowing.
This past summer, before I left for college, my parents went to court to finally find out what would happen with the house. I remember I stayed in bed that morning. I'm not very religious, but I have been trying to get into it, and that morning I prayed so much. I prayed for the house to please not be taken away. I have so many memories here, I just prayed and prayed for something to happen and that we would keep it. I called my parents and asked what happened, to my surprise, my mom answered but she didn't sound sad. She said she would tell me once we got home. Something told me that it wasn't good news, but I didn't want to be negative.
When my parents got home, I asked my dad very eagerly and he said we couldn't keep it. I stood there in shock not knowing what to say or how to comfort my parents. My mom said at the court, there was a lady with a daughter around the same age as me, in college too, and that the same thing happened to them. The lady cried and didn't know what to do because she was alone and it was only her and her daughter, she asked what would happen to her. Little did I realize that we were the lady and daughter.
Throughout this horrendous journey, I have learned to not get attached to anything materialistic and that money always comes and goes. It breaks my heart every time I talk about this, and even writing this has made me cry. It has been difficult to talk about because it's something very hard to go through; to know that you won't have a place anymore; to know that the one place that makes you feel safe from everything outside of it, will be gone, forever; to know that the place I grew up where I have all my favorite and worst memories will not be mine anymore.
Many, many times I have cried about this. I openly talk about it to show that although my family is going through this, I'm not giving up on college. Even though we have a couple of months here left, I won't be here. I go to school out-of-state, I don't come home often. The only time I'll be able to enjoy the house is when I visit for Spring break. I started to pack because I won't have time to pack when we have to leave in a couple of months because I'll be ending my first year of college. It feels like shit to lose a home and it pisses me off. It hurts to see my mom cry and be hurt because all her hard work feels like it wasn't worth it. She busted her ass to try and pay for this, but even then, it didn't work. I hate how there is nothing I can do, but just try to comfort. My mom says that maybe it's for the best that this happened because it's getting dangerous here, and I am a true believer that everything happens for a reason and that the universe gives you things for a reason too.
I love this house no matter what. I'll remember the summer days my godsister would come and we would go to the park; the summer days my best friend Araceli would come to hang out on my front steps; the times my best friend Yndira would sleep over; when I brought my boyfriend to meet my parents and when he met the rest of my crazy family; when I had my birthday parties; when I had my sweet sixteen; when my friends would come over and say how beautiful my house is; where this would be the hang out spot for my best friends and me; where I would come home to throughout high school; where I had my first cat; where I got my first allergic reaction; where I came home to after I went to the emergency room and was stuck in bed for two weeks; where I stayed after I got really sick in the sixth grade and couldn't go to school; where I stayed in my room after my first heartbreak and the second; where I got closer to my sister; where I learned how to truly value my family and everything they do; where I fall asleep by touching the wall in hopes that the house knows I love it very much and will miss it dearly.
