On September 26, 2020, my older sister Karis was walking home down Main Street at the exact moment a realtor was putting up a “For Sale” sign outside of THEE house in Brookville. This was the only house I said we would leave Indianapolis — our home for the previous decade. This house was truly a one of a kind, show stopping, dare I say– mansion?

My parents moved to Brookville after my dad retired from the railroad in Jacksonville, Florida back in 2011. Less than a year after they moved to this picturesque town nestled in the hills outside of Cincinnati, my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 56. My older sister, Karis and her family had just moved to Brookville, and our youngest sister, Lauren, ended up moving here shortly after my mom finished chemo.

There was a wonderful five years of remission, we lived only an hour and a half away and were able to get out of the city and enjoy the slower pace of a town and surrounding countryside we were slowly falling in love with. We talked very casually about looking for a small home to fix up for us to use as a place to stay while visiting, and rent out as an Airbnb for the thousands of tourists who come for the lake, hiking and kayaking.

Then my mom’s cancer came back with a devastating vengeance in 2017. The diagnosis was grim, it was in her peritoneal and liver. I made the mistake of googling the average life expectancy and unfortunately those results were right. After a heartbreakingly short battle, we lost our mom on December 3, 2017.