Home...

Today was a strange day for many reasons. School just didn't keep my interest so once I was done with Choir I headed home, picked Keisha up, and went Daffodil picking. Keisha was super happy with that arrangement! She loves to ride.

 I never meant to go 'home'. It was not in my plans at all. I intended to go pick Daffodils, deliver them, and then go do homework. But I turned onto 388 and I felt that shift inside me and I knew it was time for a trip 'home'. As I turned on to that road that is still so familiar, the wheels in my brain were spinning faster than the wheels on my car. So many many memories! A few that flew through my mind were the time my sister and I decided that we COULD push her broken down car the 1.5 miles to the house! Never mind that it was the dead of winter and late at night and full moon!! We didn't make it all the way, but we sure made memories. Or the time that I tied my dog to my handle bars and went for a bike ride before school to try and dry my wet hair. I must have been about eight I'd guess. The dog decided that the ditch was better than the road and I ended up with a hamburger looking knee that put me on crutches for three weeks. I still have a nasty scar on that knee. Or the time that my brother told me he would pay me twenty dollars if I would run to the bridge and back every morning before school for a whole month. I didn't make the twenty dollars but I did learn that I loved to run. 

As I walked in the lane at 'home' more memories flooded my mind and I could not help but smile. There was a time that I was deathly afraid of the cows because I was convinced they wanted to bite my toes off. I was always always barefoot so maybe that was an argument a well meaning sibling used to try and keep boots on my feet in the winter. Anyway, I have a very vivid memory of being sent to the mailbox one day while the family was putting up corn in the yard. I stood at the head of that driveway and wailed because I was so afraid to walk down the lane past the cows. My second oldest sister, in a rare act of mercy, came and walked with me to retrieve the mail. 

Today I walked in the lane, found the walk way, and headed up to the porch. Snow drops are still growing down among the overgrowth. I remember helping my mama plant them. The old wood stove is still there. Rusted and falling apart but still so beautiful! I remember when they came and put it in new. I thought that it was the most beautiful stove in the world! 

There close to the porch I found broken pieces of my mama's dishes. How can there be so many pieces of the life of a family left after nearly twelve years? The yard is totally overgrown with trees and bushy thorny undergrowth but there are still so many pieces. Things that got missed the day they pushed everything together in a big pile and buried it with their big machines. The owners of the property seem to have let the house site go completely. 

From the porch I headed out to the barn. Ah that barn. It is only a shell of what it was in my childhood but it is basically just as it was when the house burned. What is left of it now is just one of two small open areas which were on either side of the main barn. I have great memories of that barn from when I was really small but my favorite memory is from the day I pulled the whole thing down. It had started falling apart and needed to be torn down badly! It was not safe for the animals anymore and really we only needed the small shelters for them to eat under and get in from the rain. So, we all went out together to pull it down. We worked and worked at that thing! We thought we could just lasso a main beam, tie it to my brothers truck, and pull it down. Nothing doing! So my brother went in with his rifle and started shooting apart the beams. It was great!!! After a little of that I picked up the rope and started pulling and lo and behold I pulled the whole thing right down! Today when I walked into what is left of it the scent was exactly the same as always. If I could bottle that scent and have it every single day I would! 

I spent some time just enjoying leaning against the fence in the barn and letting my mind wander back through the years. So many cows I raised in this barn! So many bags of feed I put out! I still remember the first trip to the sale barn with a load of steers after my brother moved out and I took over the work with the cattle.  He was so shocked at how gentle all of them were and I remember hearing dad say "Well they should be! Your sister does everything except sleep in this barn with them! She even does her homework in the feed trough!" It was true and it made me so happy to have spent so much time with them! 

The view from the behind the barn is still breath taking! Well ok, to me it is. :) 

I took the time today to walk down to the pond. As a child I loved this pond! My family was always worried I would run into a water snake and get myself killed, but somehow they never managed to make me afraid of that fate and they never talked me out of spending time there. Although I will say that I never actually got in that pond. I think my daddy would have come a bit unglued if I'd tried that! 

I had to laugh as I remembered the day that I nearly got myself killed because I had the audacity to disobey my big brother and let the horse I was riding have his head. He ran right under this bodock tree (for ya'l who don't know this a bodock tree is a nasty thing we have down here. They have huge thorns all over them and are almost impossible to get rid of) He scraped me clean off his back and in the process my face, arms and legs got slashed up pretty badly. I still have a scar on one cheekbone and one on my right arm from that. I got in trouble but my injuries got me a lot of pity. Flame (the horse) on the other hand, was shown no mercy. My brother was livid with him and rode him hard that afternoon until he was thoroughly worn out and repentant. I learned that day that few things are equal to the ire of a big brother when his little sister is hurt! 

As I left the place and headed back down the lane towards my car I felt a bit like I was walking away from a place inside myself. Keisha was so happy to have the room to run and as I followed her down that lane toward a life so far removed from these memories my heart ached a bit and I wondered, what exactly is home? 

Picking Daffodils I thought about it. Arranging them in jars I thought about it. Driving home I thought about it. What is home? I know that that amazing beautiful place is where my soul feels most at home. I know that nowhere else in all the world has my heart like that place.  Not even my sweet little house and my beautiful, magical yard have my heart quite like that place does. In spite of the fact that I have now spent more years living away from that place than I did living there, I still know its every foot. I love every part and piece of that 400 acres. So is that my home? If home is where the heart is, is that home? 

I don't know how to answer my own question, although I grapple with it from time to time. I know that we all long for a home. We crave a belonging. A place, a person, something that is absolutely home. Somewhere that is always safe, always there, always steady. But I ask you, is there anywhere on earth that can truly be that? Is there anyone on earth that can truly provide that? Or is home something we can find, truly find, only in Christ Jesus and the heaven that He holds for us? I don't know for sure, but I know one thing. If heaven is more beautiful, and more home, than the 'home' I went home to today, then I'd like to go right now please!