Going Home

Returning Home

Last month, I awakened on my 58th birthday after having spent my first night back home, the home of my childhood. I am now continuing my life journey from a place that was the source of the beginning of all memory for me. I came to this home just before I turned two and I left it just after I turned 18.

My parents are gone from here – this home, this piece of land, this planet, this life. Each of them died in this home, just as they wished to do.

And though the sun light and the birds’ songs and the flora and fauna awaken something in my instinct that says all is familiar, it’s new again as my being absorbs these things into my grown-self sensibilities.

McMansions surround this modest house now, and the trees give more shade to the yard than when I was young. The house itself is tired and worn, like me at the moment.

I joked with friends, saying, “I feel as if I got the “Return to Start” card in a board game.” But once I arrived here, I realized it’s not a start from scratch situation at all. My 30-year history with a family of  my own is part of me and is evident in the photos scattered throughout this house – my wedding, my infant children, their milestone pictures, our presence at family gatherings that my mother hosted.

A little bit, it’s as if I’ve walked into a museum of my life. And the core of my being is reinforced in the presence of the place where it formed.