Home Is Where Your Heart Is

It sure doesn't matter where you are, if the people you love are there, it's "Home." My trip "home" to California went well and despite the circumstances, we enjoyed spending time with many friends and family each day. Here is my friend Sofia who drove 3 hours to help, and my sister in law Cindy. Both ladies were a big help to this only child, and they even made it fun making decisions...like what to do with 4 sets of sombreros and maracas!

Kyle's best buddy Tom came to visit with his mom Nancy...what a huge help to Kyle having his friend there and Nancy did a great job entertaining all the kids so I could work. If only I had a picture of one of their favorite past times...walker races! It's just like wheelchair races but with the big walkers with seats attached!

This is just a sampling of the many organized bins my mom kept of everything from holiday decor to my dad's old trains and Ham Radios. I needed to decide if I was keeping or selling every item in those bins. I thought I did well keeping only enough treasures to fill one bin. I found the most important things and saved only those items that were irreplacable to me.

I took photos of things I didn't keep...and said goodbye to many reminders of the past, like the Santa that graced the hearth of the fireplace in every home we lived in.

It was difficult leaving the house, and knowing that the items I left behind would all be sold by the estate sale woman.

Although I know all the proceeds are going toward a worthy cause of replenishing the scholarship fund, it is still difficult to leave all my parents remaning belongings to strangers. Any memories I wanted to have a tangible reminder of, are safely loaded in this 10 ft. U-Haul being driven here as I type by our friend Warren.

I also had the privilege of meeting the scholarship recipients and taking a photo for the local paper at the school my mother taught at for over 30 years.

What wonderful teachers who will honor my parents by how they use the funds in their classrooms. I am certain my parents would have been so pleased to see the generous contributions of friends and family used in this way.

Upon returning home...the pond had sure progressed, and there was such joy in watching the kids run over the bridge, and gaze at their reflections.

The life I knew has been left behind, and I am welcomed home with new opportunities for making memories...

Life ends and begins over again. Time marches forward even when I sometimes want to stay in the past and "live there" until I feel good and ready to return to the present. It would have been easy to get stuck in the past in my parents home, to let the tears return upon opening every box filled with some trinket or treasure from my past.

I am bringing what is left of that past home with me, but remembering that life goes on; and that home is really in many different places...it was at my parents home, where their memories linger...home is at our grandparents home where holidays were celebrated..."Home" is at a friends house where we are welcomed with open arms...home is at the kitchen table of Tom's parents where they played hours of "Gin" with Kyle...where Tom's mother prepared meals for us...where we were loved.

Home is anywhere people we love are, and I am grateful for so many places to call home! How good life is to be "home" once again!