Home, Sweet Home – Part 1
Today, I’m going to begin a short series on Home. These last few years, and especially the last few months, have provided some unique perspectives on homes. As a military brat, I had a few homes growing up. Compared to some families, there weren’t that many. I started my life in military housing in Patuxent River, MD, and then headed to “civilian” housing in Lemoore, CA, and more military housing in Edwards Air Force Base, CA, before returning to the east coast and spending most of my childhood in Florida.
At the ripe age of 15, I came kicking and screaming to the middle of the country. My parents built a nice, new home for us to move into – nicer than any we had previously owned. To me, home was always synonymous with family, not location. Locations change, but your family doesn’t.
Fast forward to my married life. After a stint away from Memphis (we’ll call it adventure #1 to OH), I suspected that my 18 month old and 3 year old might grow up in the same home and same school… more like their dad’s story than their mom’s. When, as an adult, Chris would meet people from his grade school years, it amazed me. There are probably only a handful of my classmates from Orange Park, FL, that remember me after all these years. Lots of childhood friends are still dear to me, but I’ve been lousy at staying connected.
However, despite living in Memphis for 17 consecutive years during my married life, my children lived in six different places. Some of that is the life of a church planter, but some of that is just normal life. Regardless of what it was, it didn’t provide one specific house that my children will always call home.
An unexpected call this past year led me to go knocking on the door of Chris’s childhood home. I had driven by there decades ago as a new girlfriend on a date and these days, I’m in close proximity multiple times a week… but this time, I stopped and got out. I knocked on the door and prepared to introduce myself. “Hi! You don’t know me… but my husband grew up in this house. Can I come in?”
Imagine if you were answering that door.
The first time I knocked, no one was home. It was a good thing because as I walked to the door, I was overcome with emotion. While I had never walked inside that building, I knew that it held the memories of some of my husband’s highest highs and lowest lows. I knew that by walking in there, I’d know more of him than I currently knew even after spending the last 30 years of our lives together.
It was standing at that door that made me realize that there’s power not just in creating a home-y environment, but in a physical home… and especially in returning to it.
Join me next week as I pick up with part 2 of Home, Sweet Home.