You Can't Go "Home" Again. Because "Home" Is Not A Place

This is a very disorganized ramble through some thoughts I've had kicking around in my head for the last few days. If it doesn't make sense to you, feel free to quit reading.  

I recently returned to the area of Southern California very near where I grew up and spent some of my leisure time.  Nothing much was recognizable.  It's been 27 years since I left California for Germany.  Matt and I spent 4 years there, and then the Air Force sent us here to Oklahoma.

I didn't go to any of my old haunts.  I was there for my Mom's burial service at Rose Hills, which has grown SO much since last we were there in 1986 to bury my Pop.  Mom is next to him now, and there are BIG trees all around now, whereas before there were none.  The spectacular view is no longer easily available from that site.  Still, it is a beautiful spot, on a hillside, near the top of a hill. 

The service was really less a service than a remembrance.  We sat in a circle and told Mom stories.  The pastor asked us to consider where Mom is now, where do we think she is?  (I maintain she's with Pop again, because that would be her idea of Heaven.  And perhaps Ollie and Bobo kitties are with them, and maybe Kasey will show up to wait with them for me.  Skippy and Misty and O.D. (dogs) are probably hanging around as well, and I hope Dougal, Taz, Mr. Bear, and Skye show up to say hi and that they'll be waiting for me and Matt.  
The rest of the people Mom loved who have gone before will be there, I'm sure, and they'll all be waiting for us.  That's what Heaven is to me, to know all the ones I have cherished will be together again at last.  There is no detailed description, no guarantee about what Heaven is, but I believe it is the ultimate sense of being "home".  A place and a sense of being surrounded by love that makes us feel at peace and secure.

 I discovered long ago that home isn't a place, it's a sense of belonging, a relationship.  Usually between you and the people you belong to, but also a relationship to a place. 
I found that my internal compass works better in Southern California, perhaps because that is where it was originally programmed.  I could tell almost always which direction we were going, even if I didn't recognize much in the way of highways or buildings.  I get turned around out here, very easily.  Oklahoma is not where my compass was programmed to navigate.  I have had to teach myself to pay attention to where I am here.  In Southern California, I had a pretty good idea where I was, even if I hadn't been there before. (Because chances are I HAD been there before, just in the 1970s or earlier!)

Even though I had no previous ties to Oklahoma, it is now truly "HOME"to me.  I have been through so much here, grown so much, learned so much, and come to love so many people here, that is is definitely home.  I have made friends that I love as much as family, found a church that challenges me, comforts me, and appreciates me, found work that is of value to my community, and that lets me support my passion for reading and sharing my love of reading with others.  Besides, home is really wherever Matthew is for me.  For almost 32 years, Matt has been my love, my support, my partner in adventure.  As long as I have him, I have a really good sense of "home".

The "home" I found in Southern California on this visit had more to do with the people around me than the place itself.  Family is family, wherever you are. Even if you have your issues with each other, you still belong to each other, and yes, you love each other.  I had the great privilege of getting to spend time with my niece Amy, whom I had not seen since 1988 or 89.  She has grown into a lovely young woman, and has a wonderful husband and an adorable two and a half year old daughter.  I was 16 the year Amy was born.  Same distance between she and I that exists between me and my oldest brother.  I remember well when she was born. She was SO wanted, so loved, even before she got here.  She was my folks' first grandchild.  My first niece.  My sister's first child. 
She took very good care of her silly old auntie while I was visiting.  Found a great hotel for me, took me out to eat, took me to see the ocean again, and most of all, let me meet my grandniece.  We had a chance to catch up and learn about each other on an adult level, and it was very nice indeed. 

 I also got to spend some time with my nephew, whom I hadn't seen since he was little.  He has little boys of his own now, and they are adorable.  His wife is really sweet, and the boys are a bit shy around weird old aunties that they've never met, but they were polite.  It means a lot that they cared enough to come and meet us at the beach and share some time with me while I was there. 

My oldest brother, so family legend has it, once went away to camp as a child (long before I was on the scene), and wrote a letter home the first week asking Mom and Pop to come get him.  Pop contended he was just homesick, and he'd get over it.  Butch said "No, I'm not homesick, I'm PEOPLE sick."  He missed his family, not his house. (Knowing Butch, he could also have been weary of the company of the other children, but that's another issue...)
The people who are your family are the people who "gotta love ya" as the saying goes.  They may not always LIKE you very much, but they do love you.  We are part of each other in a family, like it or not. 

My family is not terribly demonstrative, not "huggy" people.  I tend to be, I have an affectionate nature for being such an introvert, but if I love someone, I want them to know, I want to hold them close, even if only for a second.  We humans are such separate creatures, so unable to really see or know what goes on inside one another.  Oh, we can learn to be observant and make pretty good guesses, but we never know for sure.  Hugs are one of the few ways we can express that sense of "We are part of each other" .  I have friends I hug, because I love them.  (They also happen to be huggy people, so that works out...)

My siblings all left home by the time I was nine.  I had Mom and Pop all to myself from then until I was 24 and got married and moved out myself.  I was spoiled as a child, but just as much by my siblings as by my parents.  My parents finally got used to the idea that I was a grown up, but I don't think the same has sunk in to all my siblings.  My parents knew for sure I was a real adult when I stayed by myself in that house in DOWNTOWN San Bernardino while Matt was TDY.  Well, I was married, and that house was our home.  I had work of my own to do, and I had to be home to do it.  Besides, running back to Mom and Pop never even occurred to me.  (Where Matthew comes back to is home, even when that was a small apartment on a farm in Germany during the first Gulf War.)

Mom and Pop had a parting ritual.  Every time Pop left for work, he kissed Mom and said they said "I love you." Pop used to say "Love you most." Or Mom would, whoever got to it first.  They were affectionate, and when I was a little kid, they were affectionate with me, too.  Even when I was a grown up, they'd hug me goodbye when they came to visit, or if I did.  I know my siblings were more affectionate when they were younger. I don't know why time seems to have put a stiffness around us.  Oh, they will break down and hug on the rare occasions we are together, but it always has an awkward  feel to it.  My friends are much more natural about it.  Heck, a couple of the kids who come in the library are more relaxed about it, and they don't know me THAT well, even if I have known them since they were tiny.

So, yes, home can mean many things, but mostly it is a place where you feel loved, and where you feel you belong.  "Home is where the heart is" , "Home is where they have to let you in when you go there." "You can't go home again."  So many sayings about home.  For me, as I said, home is where Matthew is.  Sometimes it takes awhile for a place to feel like home, but you put down roots, and you grow, and you come to love and be loved by the people and the place.