of mothers & home

Mother and home have, for me, always been synonymous.

Growing up, home was simply where ever my mom lived. Actually, she didn’t even have to live there for it to feel like a safe, comfortable home. She simply had to be there, taking up temporary residency, and that place would become, as if by magic, the place that felt like home.

What a bittersweet paradox it becomes then, when as a married woman, your home is an abode that is not only thousands of miles from your mother, but one that she has never been to.  It is home to me, this small apartment where my husband and I have created a place for ourselves. Where we have filled it to the brim with the endearing marks of the life we lead and the things we love. And yet, some people will always feel something is slightly amiss in a home where their mom has never entered. Apparently, I am one of those people.

Because even after a total of 7 years living outside the borders of my childhood home, I still catch myself referring to both my current residence and the place where my mom lives as home. I hear myself say, time and time again, “I’m going back home” or “When I get back home…”  I’m probably not alone in this having two homes, either.

Why is that? Why do we do that when speaking of the place from which we come?

My parents don’t even live in the same house as the one I grew up in. Their current address, this place I call “returning home” is a place I have never actually lived, in a state that I have never belonged to. But when I return for a visit, it feels almost as much like home as the one of my childhood.

Have you ever noticed how you can go to a new, unfamiliar place and if it’s where your mother is, it feels like home to you, too? Perhaps it’s your first time there, yet you don’t feel at odds with your surroundings. They seem familiar, they smell familiar, and you know exactly what you’ll find behind the cabinet doors. You can open the unknown refrigerator or lay down for a rest just the same as you would in your own home.

Why?

Because she is there. She makes that strange house into a place of familiarity and comfort. Because where she dwells is home, even if it isn’t your only home, and probably forever will be, no matter how many years or changes come to pass.

Back in March, I had the privilege of having my mother come to visit me in the northwest. For the first time, she stepped into what had been my home since the day I arrived here from my honeymoon almost 5 years ago. My joy over her visit was not to just spend time with her and see her, although it certainly was that, too. But there was a feeling of satisfaction and completion, that finally, my mother and my home would meet. Something felt right about that. A missing piece was falling into place. Her very presence sanctions and hallows the corners and crevices of the place I love to call mine.

While she was here, we began to reminisce of the many different moves that transpired over the 31 years between my mother’s walk down the aisle one hot, August evening and the flight that took her across the country to see me that chilly, March day.  My husband, listening in, happened to reach for the laptop and began to map and list our memories. We knew it would be a lot of moves, but we were taken by surprise at the actual results. 30 moves in 31 years of marriage.

I remember a few of those moves. Some were quirky and fun and temporary. With other moves, we settled in and put a few roots into the deep, red clay of the Carolina foothills or the rolling piedmont. But what I don’t remember is ever feeling like a place was not home. I don’t remember asking my parents when we could just stay put. It’s possible I did, but I just don’t remember it. To the contrary, moving was an exciting adventure to my siblings and myself. No matter how unconventional the ending destination of that adventure was, that place became home, for the time being. New, peculiar noises in the night, or mysterious shadows to get acquainted with, it didn’t matter. I knew somewhere beyond the walls, down an unfamiliar hall, she was there. She was never more than a call in the night away. And when I awoke in the morning, she’d already be up, making a house into a home, like a kaleidoscope bursting and swirling with the warmth and comfort of bacon and biscuits, housecoats and hot chocolate. The things that feel like home, no matter where you find yourself. New home or new day, she was there. Always.

It may be surprising to my mother that her restless firstborn is reflecting on home. I was, after all, born with wings for feet, and she always noticed and nurtured that in me. I was the one she received letters from at the age of 10, when I pretended I was writing her from a fantasy trek across Europe and Africa. I was also the one to whom she gave a birthday present of an enormous, forest green suitcase, in preparation of those fantastical, future travels. Barely a year later, at 15, I packed that same suitcase to fly halfway across the world with my aunt to Romania, with barely a glance over my shoulder and only a slight flutter of the heart. I loved to go. I loved to push my horizons far beyond the hills and hollows of the hometown. I wanted to know what else was out there that wasn’t so comfortable, and comforting, as home and mom.

I’m guessing my mother might have thought, a time or two, that the strings of her oldest girl’s heart weren’t very tightly wound up with her apron strings. And yet that same girl cried all the way down Interstate 77 South, the night she first moved away, with boxes of glass dishes from Belk’s clinking in the back seat of my Hyundai. Mom had bought those dishes for me years prior and had them placed in my hope chest. She’s a great mother, my mom, preparing her children years in advance for a day that she probably would rather not have arrive for any of her nine.

And the thing that wrung the tears from me the most on a night that I should have been enjoying the open highway and new beginnings? My mother hugging me close just before I stepped outside the door that one last time, and her reassuring words to me.

“You can come back any time. This will always be your home”.

 I knew that was no small thing. Not every mother says that. Some mothers are more than ready to push their 20-something kids out into the world. But not my mom. Where ever she was would always be home, and her kids would always be welcome. I also knew nothing would ever quite be the same again. Stepping out on your own requires you trade in a way of life. The childhood way of life. The simplicity and peace of mind that comes from having your mother close enough to only be that call in the night away.  I think I must have considered turning my car around at least half a dozen times that evening to take her up on her promise. The girl with wings for feet was thinking she might just want to fly back and live at home forever.

I think it was on the drive that night that I realized sometimes the things we think we can do without, the things we consider overrated, the things we long to be set free from, are the ones that end up meaning the absolute most to us. We grow past the stage of needing them all the time, but they still bind us the dearest and ground us the deepest. Things like home. And Mothers.

Thank you, Mom, for everything. As a child, home and mother were synonymous to me because home wasn’t a place. It was you.