Going Home

How often do I say that phrase - going home? I say it to the kids when we've been on a long grocery trip or, less often, out to a big box store. I say it when we're at the park and need to leave, or when we've completed our fourth trip in four days down to the flooring store.

This week, though, that phrase has taken on a heavier meaning. Last week, Mike and I bravely took four children on a 420 mile journey. Being wimps, we split it into two days, but, to our credit, that also gave us a chance to spend a leisurely evening with Mike's Grandma. That was really nice. Our "plan" was to end that evening with a great swim at the hotel, but Mighty Mouse falling and smacking his head on the concrete near the pool put a quick end to that delightful escapade. Manly Mouse thought it was fine thing to be done, though, since he took one look at the pool and burst into tears for the rest of the "fun swimming time". Oy.  The zoo the next day was a by far more popular event. Regardless of the circumstances, though, we were going home.

Maybe it's being a farm girl that makes my roots so very important to me. I'm not sure. In high school I spent evenings out on my parents' steps staring at the stars, petting our dog, pouting about being dateless. Last week I spent evenings out on the deck, staring at the stars, thinking about two friends who really, truly went home, to their final resting place, one early in the week, one later in the week. Against that backdrop, my high school musings seem silly all these years later. All these funerals later. So there I sat, missing my friends, crying for those they left behind, homesick for a time now gone.

It was good to be home. It was good to get back to this home. It was special today to go back to yet another place I got to call home for awhile.

It was hard to leave home on Monday. It was hard to leave that other home behind this afternoon after our visit there. I even went to our actual, physical, former, now-empty house and picked some plums from a tree planted in 2005. It was a good home.

Maybe all these tears that seem to keep dripping are evidence that our home really isn't anywhere around here after all. I know my two friends are both in their eternal home - Heaven - and I don't think they have to feel this homesickness for places and people and times they've loved and lost anymore.

"Perfect submission. All is at rest. I in my Savior am happy and blest. Watching and waiting, looking above, filled with His goodness, lost in His love"....How could one feel homesick when we really are totally filled with His goodness and lost in His love?! Perhaps that's what really going home feels like.