Beech Tree News Network

WHERE IS HOME? I wrote something years ago for my dad, back before he even knew I was dabbling as a writer. I titled it – More than a name- it was about how my dad and I shared a lot more than just our last name. After he read it he asked me if I wrote it or had gotten it from someplace and I told him I wrote it with my own hand, with no input from anyone else. He quietly shook his head, folded the paper carefully and took it to his room for safekeeping, that is about as emotional as my father got.

My dad and I are different in many ways but there are a lot of similarities too. As I grow older I hear more and more often about how much I look like my dad, I usually respond with “ I guess that is better than looking like some other guy !” but others who knew us both also often tell me it isn't just our looks that the similarities encompass.

Now that my dad is no longer with us, I was going to share what I wrote to him for Fathers day but I can't find that particular paper, even though I know it is around here somewhere. Occasionally I write some things for other avenues besides this column, one I just finished for a group of writers that just began getting together to encourage and inspire each other. Since it is talks about home and some of the events of growing up which shaped me, I thought I would share it instead for fathers day.

Where is home?

Where is home? Is it that tiny rural community set in the bend of where Barren river and Green river meet? The place where my Grandparents raised their youngest children, in the home bought with money sent from their eldest child, gotten for joining the military in a time of war, a war that never allowed him to return to his own home. A home which also saw another child taken from a disease of the blood, when she was only sixteen. A place where my own father battled polio, in a time before it became rare.

Could I call this place home, with so much grief and pain weaved in to the fabric of the place? When my parents moved north, our visits to the south were always referred to as “going home.” Cousins had stayed behind and called this spot home. My earliest friendships were made there. I recall breakfasts around an antique table, with homemade biscuits I had rose early enough to help my grandfather make. I learned hide and seek and tag and “King of the mountain” there. I caught my first fish (of which there have been only a few) there. So many memories; is that place home?

Is the place I lived as a child, on the banks of a great lake, the place I consider home? The place is where my first love shared my bed and made me get up in the middle of the night, so he could go outside. All these years later and still a thought of that yellow dog can choke me up. It is the place I learned to ride a bike and roller skate. It is the place where I first became daring, throwing caution to the wind by riding a sled down the steepest hills I could find, at breakneck speed. It is where I started school, an institution dreamed up by a madman I was sure; not realizing the fate that awaited my future, in even less progressive formats, when we returned to the south. It is the place where I am almost positive I saw a ghost, or at least something which scared a ten year old boy so bad that I jumped a whole flight of stairs. So many memories there, do I consider that place home?

Is the place I consider home the place my family moved to when we returned south. It is the place where my yellow dog was laid to rest and others which were loved almost as much joined him there. It is the place where I learned about bullies and where I got into my first fight. It is where I learned to drive and where I drank my first beer and it is where I learned how intoxicating girls could be, that place is covered by a road these days but memories of old friends and fun times still reside there; along with the pain of switches being brandied about for honest accidents and simple mistakes; forever leaving a dark mark on a sensitive child's soul. The harsher pain of being ridiculed or worse still being excluded also still lingers in that place; those memories become uncovered whenever I remember that place.

Is home the place I lived when first married, back in that small community by the river. Navigating independence and responsibility. Thrilled at life; frustration , disappointment and elation and simple joy all mixed together there. Do I consider that place home?

Is the place we moved to when my bride was 8 ½ months pregnant, the place I consider home? It is where my children were each brought in turn, when they came home from the hospital after they were born. It is the place that so much blood sweat and hope has went into, in order to turn a house into a home. My children took there first steps there; grew into the young man and woman they are today, there. So many tears, so much laughter inside those walls. I began to seriously write inside that home. I decided to walk beside a man called Jesus, while I lived in that home. I found I was battling a disease of the blood, just like my aunt, while living there. The exuberance of youth has given way to the wisdom of experience while living in this home. Is it the one I will always consider home?

Is home a place we go when our bodies give out, as as so many have preached to me and earnestly believe? I do not think that “home” is really any of the places I have lived or even a “place,” set aside for me when I die.

Home is where there is no fear; no fear of being punished for an accident or mistake; no fear of being ridiculed or excluded; no fear of not measuring up; no fear of disappointing others; no fear of sin, or doors slamming shut; no fear of being misunderstood! Home is where you are accepted, every single little quirk and twist about you. Home is not a place at all but it is where you belong!

On this father's day, let all of us fathers try to always provide a place in this world where our family is safe and accepted just like they are; a place they will always know as “home.”