With a Marrakesh bungalow in our pocket, the time was coming to bid our house in Rabat a very fond farewell. We had spent four years there, and the house held many important memories for us. In the French quarter of the city, called Agdal, the house was a private space surrounded by tall compound walls entirely covered with climbing, flowering hibiscus. We had enormous birds of paradise trees in the small garden, as well as many blooming plants under which our three tortoises took long naps. The house had one floor for entertaining, one floor for sleeping, and one floor for the children to play and the family to eat. Somewhat of a rarity in the city, we had heard about the house before it had come onto the rental market and had rushed to sign a lease.
It would soon be time to hand the keys over to another family who would make it their own.
So before the packing began and the movers arrived, we would need to say goodbye to the house as we once knew it. Goodbye to the bedroom to which we had brought our newly born daughter, goodbye to the bedroom where our son had built elaborate forts, goodbye to the guest room that had seen the arrival of more than 40 family members and friends. No more birthday parties in the garden, no more dinners with friends at the living room's low tables, no more quiet breakfasts on the small porch.
The sadness of leaving this house would be made bearable only by remembering that it was never really ours in the first place. Merely on loan.
So like at the end of a children's story, we would say: Goodbye sweet house, goodnight Mr. Moon. And we would close the book.
