home

There was a place I used to feel welcome all the time.  I never worried about anything, always fed, always safe, always a place to lay my head.  And the people there knew me, and loved me anyway.  All the things I learned there have remained a constant guard and guide for my life.  It was a special time in that special place for a young boy who's world had been flipped upside-down many times.

There was a man there.  He was strong, brave, and true.  His ideals and his frame were as hard and concise as the steel and combustion technology he worked with.  He was a shining example of what a man should be.  As tough and steady as he was, a grain of wander-lust lingered in the twinkle of his blue irish eyes.  And behind that cheshire grin was a storehouse of chuckles that easily lightened the mood of a young mind weighed down with some pretty heavy thoughts.  With his hard, strong hands he labored to maintain what was his, tinker at his leisure, discipline when needed, held and comforted little ones with scraped knees and egos, and broke up the fallow ground for planting the most basic of life's necessities-food.

There was a woman there.  She was the heartbeat of that place.  She had a meal on the table for anyone who happened by, three times a day everyday. She kept that place clean and inviting.  The spirit within her radiated a supernatural peace that had a deep, calming effect on those who came near.  Her pillowy hands baked cakes and pies, kept the books in the red, planted and harvested the gardens and orchards that adorned the lands about her house.  A prayer for you and a warm smile was always on her lips, unless you thumped your sister just to hear her scream.

Somehow, the bright-eyed, gypsy man and the grounded, persistant woman fit together so perfectly that it made that place very, very special.  They were to me a rare and invaluable concoction that brought health, wisdom, and happiness, as well as a much needed stability.

In 1999 I visited that lady, who, by then, had run out her days.  She sat reclined in a chair, weak and frail from giving herself away.  I knelt beside her and she put her pillowy hand on my face and smiled a smile that will always illuminate the halls of my memory.  I stopped my car at the end of the drive as I left to resume my life in Wisconsin.  Tears began falling as I looked back at the house, the fields, and the orchards.  I let the scene burn itself deep into the fibers of my soul, for I knew I had just seen my Grandma for the last time on this earth.  And I knew that along with her would pass the fullness of all that I will ever call home.

It is true.  You can never go back home.  But if you have been privileged to experience that level of contentedness, you know that it lives within you, and is there for you to continue drawing from all the days of your life, and to the farthest reaches that you could travel.