Going Home

Going Home

It has been said you can never go home. One reason is that home is never the same for everyone. It can be a physical place as well as just a state of mind. One usually thinks of home as the house they lived and grew up in. For some it is where their heart is. For others it is wherever they hang their hat.

I recently had to make a trip home. To me home is where my parents raised my brother, two sisters and myself. The home of my childhood. The 20-20 hindsight of family, friends, school and growing up dimmed by nearly three decades of time. There was a lot of sadness to this visit, as I knew that this might possibly be the last one. I took my time in looking over the world of my past.

The houses seem smaller and much closer together now then the way I remember. The heat and humidity only serve to intensify the nearly claustrophobic feelings of this small neighborhood. Maybe being in the country so long has changed my perspective. I walked over to the cinderblock wall that separates back yards into their individual cubicles. The top of the fence was at chin height and I was able to easily look over it. It’s hard to believe that this is the same fence that I once had to perch precariously on a bicycle to do the same task.

I can’t remember it being so noisy while growing up. The twenty-four a day hum of city traffic seems almost as loud as a jet engine to me compared to the quiet I’d left behind just a thousand miles ago. Down these streets still stand the schools and church I had attended. These streets that seemingly stretched for miles to a youthful, bicycle-pedaling child are really only a few hundred yards. Everything that had been larger than life was now dwarfed by the present.

I went home with a purpose. I went home to celebrate the life that gave me life, as my mother was laid to rest. She joins ranks with my father who passed away fifteen years ago as memories that will be eternally larger than life. Together they created a family and a home from a house.

I may never go back to that house that was my home for eighteen years. I may not have to. For me, no matter where I am, home will always be the place where I am the happiest. Even if that place is just a memory.