Going Home

What does “going home” mean to you? “Going home” …some days when I am so overwhelmed by life, “going home” means longing for my childhood – when the big problems and big decisions rested in the hands of grown-ups… when I could swing on a tire swing in the evening and inhabit the safe and tiny world I knew as “home”.

“Going home” for a holiday means seeing friends and family…sharing a meal … playing cards…tossing washoes… laughing…catching up on neighborhood and family gossip. It is being with the people I love for just enough time so that I miss them in between visits. It is having the place inside of me where I am still a child, belonging to a family, awakened. It is memories, happy and sad, revisited once again and replaced in the archives in their proper perspective.

“Going home” for a funeral means wearing black on the outside and often feeling sad on the inside. It is the realization that life is tenuous and to be valued. It is seeing the friends and family that no longer gather for the holidays – pledging to get together again for happier occasions - but knowing in reality that the next time you see them will be another funeral. It is shared memories, a longing for that which is no longer, and a sense that the sands of time will run out for us all, some sooner than others. It is being grateful for whatever brings us together because the moments shared become fewer over time and distance.

“Going home” at the end of each day means exchanging things I “have” to do for a living for the things I “want” to do to live. Taking care of the people and the things that replenish and energize me is what I look forward to each day. Tending to the ‘gardens’ I have planted on the earth, in my soul, and in my mind…caring for the people I have invited into my life…seeking out new ways of expressing my concern for mankind…these are the thoughts I carry to and from my home each day.

“Going home” is feeling safe, being loved, encircled by memories and friends and family. “Going home” - wherever you are at right now, mentally, physically or spiritually, you know that deep inside of you there is a sheltered place – a place you call “home” - a place you carry with you; a place you are never far from.

written 6/2/2009