Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Home










I remember standing out in the driveway, saying goodbye.  He had mistakenly called school, the place he was returning to after some break or other, called it "Home."  I laughed at his mistake and he looked at me, all seriousness, with a shrug and a nod. "Yes. Home."

And all of these years later I can still remember how my stomach sunk like a stone, how I walked back inside and thought about it long after his car made that right-hand turn toward the expressway, putting us farther and farther behind him.  How it just didn't sit right, and I marveled - how could Home ever be..replaced?

It's been years since I've thought of it, but this afternoon I went looking for my Mom.  I walked out my back yard, past our overgrown and long neglected garden, right up to the beginning of the path Dad laid right down about 5 years ago.  I walked past the barn he painted green that summer, long and lean balanced up on the ladder, paint speckling his shoes and our faces as we watched from below.  I followed the path around the enormous beech tree out back where you can always find the shed skins of cicadas in the late summertime, ringed by Mom's hostas.  I stuck my head in that back door and hollered for what must be the eighty billionth time in my life through that creaky, 160 year old house. "Moooooooom?!?"

She ended up being over at Dad's office, as usual, working hard but always ready with a smile for me, even in midday when she had a lot on her plate.

I never thought I'd end up here, but enough years have gone by and the thought of ever leaving breaks my heart.  I think of coffee on Saturday mornings with my Dad, slipping out before the kids are up to see how he's doing.  Or glancing out my kitchen window and seeing straight into theirs, my Mom's face reflected back at me as she washes supper dishes in the sink.  I think of them stopping in to take a kid with them when they walk to the post office.  Of my kids running cookies we baked over to the office in the middle of a snowy winter's day.

These days, I'm noticing that what started out as them keeping a close eye on me during those early days of marriage and babies, has morphed into me keeping a close eye on them.  Being here, always, just in case.  Mom tells me: "In the bible, when God wanted to bless people, he always gathered them together."  I'm gathered right up, here, in my place, with my people.  My home.  My past and present is etched into my memories in this place, this landscape.  The twirl of seasons that saw me grow from pink bundle brought home on a Spring day to a Mama of nearly 6 of my very own.

Maybe I never got to live in a variety of places.  Maybe I'll never make a home for myself far from anything I've ever known.  But I call living here a blessing.  In this little nothing town in the Midwest that never seems to amount to much. Just here, gathered up with the ones I love.


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5 comments:

  1. I love all you posts. Always have. Check first thing in the morning for a good shot in the arm for my mothering/homeschooling umph. How gifted you are to put your incredible thoughtful thoughts into words and then to share them. God bless you and yours today.

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    1. Thank you Rebecca! I appreciate you stopping by and leaving a comment. I hope your day was wonderful!

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  2. This is so similar to how I feel about my parents being so close. After Corey and I were married, before starting our adventure into parenting, we were looking for a house to buy. After many heart aches of being out bid and not reaching agreements on contracts, we finally found our current house. We were the first bid and after months and months of searching, everything finally went smoothly. This old fixer upper of a house has lots of rooms for our family to grow into and is the closest of all the homes we looked at to my parents. Looking back now, after hard pregnancies, hard parenting days, and days where the weight of the world is just a bit too much, the easy escape for us to drive to my folks house is such a blessing. I know that God absolutely placed us in this home. I don't know what I would do without my parents. I love this post <3

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  3. I love this post. And although my parents are not quite as close as yours, they are a short drive away and I wouldn't change that for anything, it is wonderful to have them so close.

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