#2 This House is Home

Originally published 08/01/11

I never knew what to say when people would ask, "where are you from?" Our family moved around so much... there wasn't a city, a house, a state that I could answer them with. Wherever our family was became home and that was pretty good. It was a great family. And so it never bothered me much, that I didn't have a physical place I called "home".

Most of my mom's family live in the Savannah area and we'd go there for Christmas and Thanksgiving now and then growing up. I think I came to think of it as a sort of home. But then we'd be there and they'd have to give us directions to the Piggly-Wiggly or they'd talk about high tide and I'd realize Savannah wasn't home. It was their home, but it wasn't mine.

Georgia was the closest thing I ever had to a geographical home. I guess that's why I applied to three colleges here even though I went to high school in England and Illinois. I wonder if that's a universal thing, people gravitating towards home, or if it's just something I did out of a subconscious need to belong somewhere.

Once B Daddy and I got engaged we started looking for a home. This house was the 2nd place our realtor showed us, 2nd out of what was eventually dozens. B Daddy felt home right away. It took me much longer.  We came back twice with the realtor and brought our parents and our friends to see it before it was ours. We'd walk up on the back porch so they could peek in the windows and we'd imagine ourselves out there with a glass of wine staring into the trees.

B Daddy moved in before we got married and slept in the guest room. His grandparents gifted us a king size bed for a wedding present and I remember the day we went out and brought it home, strapped to the top of his green Ford Explorer. We finally got it down the tiny hallway and set it on the box springs and jumped on it like little kids.

On our wedding night we came back to this house and B Daddy picked me up and carried me over the threshold and down the same tiny hallway to our room for the first time ever.

That king size bed was where I lay the night we lost our first baby. And B Daddy held my hand and drove to the store at 11pm to get me Tylenol and I curled up in that bed and wept when it was over.

We came here -home- from the doctor's appointment telling us our second baby too was gone and that hot afternoon we knelt and planted red and white flowers in the front bed. To remember.

I cried the night we got in the car and left this home for the last time as a couple with no kids. I cried all the way to the hospital and wore sunglasses while I checked in so no one could see my ridiculous tears. And when we drove back down the street towards home three days later, the first thing I saw were the two signs on the black front door welcoming Elijah Brock home. 

Our daughter now sleeps in the guest room and so there is no guest room. And there is no half bath. And there is no playroom. And we'd like to fix up the porch and change out the fireplace and re-tile the master bath. Friends ask how long will you stay? Will you move when you have a third? Won't you need more space?

For now the answer is that we'll stay as long as we can and the kids will share rooms and they'll play outside instead of in a playroom. Because this place is rich in memories and this place is deep in love. The feeling of belonging is thick in the air.

This house is home.