Monday, October 20, 2014

truly home

"I'm going to go home," my mother states firmly, her face filled with emotion.
"I'm sure my mother is missing me," she adds, and then, to help me understand, she adds, "She lives three miles out of town you know."
My grandmother lived most of her adult life 'out of town' and her move to Clearwater in her 80's, into an apartment in a seniors complex was truly life altering. I'm sure there were many things about her log home surrounded by woods that she missed, but she never spoke with regret about her move. Instead, she seemed to embrace the change. Now there were next door neighbors and friends and outings and socials and visiting galore. She continued with good humor to keep her own small space, did her own cooking, took long walks daily........Her life was full of all of the things that give daily life meaning. All of the simple things, of friendship and hobby and faith and family, and in just the right amounts of each to suit the unique woman she was.
She has been gone now for more than twenty years.
It seems much longer somehow.
My mother's childhood home has been gone even longer.
My mother doesn't realize that to go home, she would need to be a time traveler.
She would need to 'break the bonds' that hold us to this time and place.
In this time and place she is an old woman.
But in that place, she is truly home.

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