And Yet the House Still Stands 8/23/2026

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

She was already an older lady when I was young. Since that has been a while back, if I had to wager a guess, there is a good chance she may be walking streets of gold these days. At the very least, I know she doesn’t live where she did then. Apparently, no one is living in that house anymore. I pass it at least twice most days, and it seems to be forgotten now.

It sits between a huge cotton field—the one that provides the setting for my daughter’s annual obligatory Southern traditional photoshoot—and pecan orchards. It’s a small brick house that I suspect was built somewhere around the middle of the last century. And that description makes it sound ancient, or more accurately, makes me feel ancient, as I know it was probably built in the 1950s or 1960s, and that most certainly is not ancient. But then again, I was recently discussing music from the ’90s with a young woman, and she was amazed at what old songs they were. I made a big to-do about how old they indeed were and how amazing it was that I could still get around in my elderly state. I joked, but also slightly died a bit inside.

This brick house is being eaten by all manner of plant life. Vines are spreading all over the house like green veins. The shrubbery that once framed the front porch has become so large that the front porch is no longer visible. There is a break that shows a door long since shut. The grass of the lawn is overgrown. The windows are blocked by tall, unkempt bushes. In the backyard, there is an old shed that leans at a precarious angle. I don’t know how long it will take before that lean succumbs to gravity and it becomes a flat pile of aged wood. Or perhaps it will collapse onto old, disremembered tools and boxes that lost their usefulness somewhere in the past.

While I have always been fascinated by old houses and the history they hold, this one feels different. Maybe it is because, to me, it isn’t all that old. Maybe it is because I knew the lady who lived in it. I had even been in the house once when I had a flat tire on the road in front of it, and she let me come in and use her telephone to call my dad. This was back in the day when a cell phone in a rural area was nothing more than a paperweight because it certainly couldn’t function.

But I feel different seeing nature take possession of this house. It feels like something important is being lost. Every time I pass this place, something upsets within me. When I paused to ask myself why this might be the case, surprisingly enough, I had an immediate answer.

This house is in an idyllic rural setting. The small brick home is quaint and nostalgic. The cotton field and pecan trees frame the image beautifully, and this little piece of charming artwork sits nestled in a small town known for farm animals and the feeling of family. It once was home to familiar faces.

Now it is being overtaken.

The long un-mown grass is high and thick and looks as though it could very easily hide a rattler or copperhead. The vines that envelop the walls are starting to penetrate the soffits and pull down the old trim work. Some of the bricks holding the porch columns look as though perhaps some untamed greenery is challenging their integrity.

It’s a sweet home place that is being overtaken by chaos.

And immediately, my brain equated it with today’s society.

Long ago, and even not so long ago, rural America was the heartbeat of this country, and the values that it held were simply the shining example of what was usually the standard. There was respect. There was dignity. There was loving one’s family and one’s nation. There was pride in hard work and commitment. We believed firmly in Truth. We clung tightly to liberty. We were grateful to God for the blessed life we lived, and we did our best to serve Him and, in so doing, serve others.

In tiny towns like mine, those qualities are, thankfully, still relatively easy to find.

But no longer are they the standard. The rural hamlets are no longer representative of the greater nation. Like the weeds and vines eating that lovely home, the chaos of political correctness, being offended by any and everything, selfishness, entitlement, lack of accountability, and everyone getting to make their own version of truth is eating away at the stable and endearing values that built this country.

What that house once was and what it once meant is disappearing. If there is no intervention, there will come a time when you won’t even know anything sweet and inviting, full of fond memories, was ever there. Sadly, the same sentiment is true for our society today. If we don’t refuse to allow it to happen, the thorns and tangles will overtake all that is good and wholesome. I pray we, as a people, soon realize and embrace our roles and take up the task at hand.

I keep thinking about that little brick house.

I wonder what it would look like if someone cleared away the vines. If the grass were mowed and the bushes trimmed back. If the old porch were uncovered and the windows opened to let the light back in. I wonder what might still be found inside—what old things might be uncovered, what memories might still be waiting beneath the disarray.

Maybe it would take more work than it is worth. Maybe some things really are too far gone to save.

But I don’t think our home is.

There is still something worth reclaiming. There is still something beneath the tangle, beneath the noise, beneath the years of neglect. And perhaps the first step is simply recognizing that we have allowed the weeds to grow.

It will take work to clear them away.  It will be brutally hard work. It will take patience. It will take all of us deciding that what is worth having is worth tending.

Because a home doesn’t stop being a home simply because it has been overtaken.

It just needs someone willing to put in the effort to clear a path back to the front door.