The day is so beautiful. I attended church, sitting on my porch swing pew in my songbird cathedral. The songbirds were singing their hymns of praise for the beauty of all God’s blessings. Father Sky has sketched a cerulean sky and filled it with snow white clouds. The sun is hot and bright making the pansies hang their heads from the heat and the petunias raise their faces to the warmth.

Ravindranath Tagore writes, “The tree, like longings of the earth, stands a-tip-toe to peep at heaven.” Wouldn’t it be great if we could peep at heaven. Just wonder what we’d see. I hope a lot of family reunions. One of my college friends was talking about heaven with one of her children and she described heaven as a huge front porch with lots of folks sitting around in rocking chairs happily talking and reminiscing. Chief always thought heaven was just an extension of Earth. I love what Nicholas Sparks wrote about heaven. “After all, if there is a heaven, we will find each other again, for there is no heaven without you.”

“Lord, when we feel lost, help us trust you to lead us on the path toward home.”— iBelieve.com

Today I’ve been sitting in the swing thinking about how content I am to be at home in my family’s home. My mother was born here and both Mama and Daddy took their last breaths here. Didn’t want to live here without Chief because he was my home but I feel like I’m home. I grew up in this house with three brothers and considered it home till I left Roanoke in August of 1979 and moved to Alexander City. I made a home there in a small apartment that I loved to go home to after work each day. Two years later I married and made my home with Chief in his father’s art studio. Our house was at the end of a dirt road, only a wood stove for heat, windows that propped open with sticks. That was my home with Chief and I loved every minute of those years in the woods. All three of our children came home from the hospital to that home. We had chickens and rabbits and ducks and cats and dogs and vegetable gardens and flower gardens. We were in the city limits but far enough off the road to feel like it was the country. Our children ran around in their underwear, happy as country urchins, barefoot with the chickens.

When Stew was four we moved from the woods to Chief’s family home. I painted all the walls, pulled up the shag carpet, and proceeded to make it a home for us. We had central heat and air conditioning (which we seldom turned on), a formal living and dining room that I loved, and a library for all our books. We slept in the library which had a wood burning fireplace, very romantic on cold winter nights. We lived there for 26 years. Several months after Chief died I came back home to Roanoke. He often told me, “When I’m gone, go home to your family. Go back to Roanoke. You’ll be fine.” Well, I came back to Roanoke. I left our home in Alexander City before the moving van came. I could not watch the house being undressed of all the things I shared with Chief.

Here at my home in Roanoke, I’m surrounded by his cameras and books and encyclopedias and manual typewriters in my lady den. He called the lady den the writing room and it was where he composed his poetry and worked on his book of Alabama county courthouses. Lots of photos of Chief and our families and the flag from his funeral rest on his grandmother’s piano. So he is here with me. And I have all the memories of the weekends we shared here for years. He loved to come here on the weekends. He’d always say, “Mama, going to Roanoke for the weekend is like a vacation.” He would be so happy living here, too.

I was trying to define the word home today while I pondered in the swing and I think home could be a tent on the mountain side or a one room apartment if you are where you feel you belong. Home is actually the place we reside. The place we feel we belong. Home is a safe haven and a comfort zone. A place where we live with our families and our pets. The magic of our homes is that we love to leave them and go places but it feels so good to come back.

Love resides in our homes and our friends are always welcomed. I think our homes are the starting places of memories and hopes and dreams. Our homes give us a sense of peace where we can be ourselves. We feel safe and secure in our homes.

I love this quote by Lin Yutang about home, “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.”

“Having a place to go is a home. Having someone to love is a family. Having both is a blessing.” — Donna Hedges