A Light for My Path

In my almost 64 years on this Earth, I have lived in 15 homes. Based on simple math, you’d think that I have moved about every 4 years over my lifetime. But, actually, I lived in 2 homes in the same tiny small town from the time I was born until I went to college. Then I married a military man, so moved around quite a bit. But, in 1995, my husband and I bought a house in a suburb of Tampa, Florida and lived there for 25 years. I have friends and fond memories from every place I’ve lived. And, of course, my hometown is still where my roots are, but that house in a Tampa suburb built in the 1950s defined most of my life.

Until now. My husband and I bought our river house in 2013 as a weekend/vacation place and, eventually, a fulltime home. By this time, our two girls were out of college and on their own. At least one weekend a month, we would leave Tampa on a Friday evening, drive the two-and-a-half hours and spend a weekend relaxing at the river and meeting the neighbors. We would reluctantly drive home on Sunday evening, or night, bemoaning the start of a new work week. But, then we’d get back into the swing of things with work and normal life, and look forward to the next river weekend.

Then we got better internet service at the river house and were able to work from there. So, if we didn’t want to go home late on Sunday, we could spend another day or two at the river, working during the day, but enjoying sunsets from the dock. The river house also became the place for family holidays. Grandkids who lived in a city could come and be country wildlings and play in the river. Our younger daughter lived close enough that she would “borrow” the river house for weekends to escape the stresses of her job and living in a city apartment.

In 2019 my employer offered an early retirement plan to select employees. I had been with them for 25 years and decided it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I was only two years into my grief of losing Rachel and I felt like the opportunity to get away from job stress was a gift from God. It also gave me the time to get our house ready to sell and to sort through decades of stuff and memories we had accumulated. My husband’s job afforded him the ability to work remotely from anywhere. So, as long as the move was minimally interruptive to his work schedule, we could go, well anywhere.

So, in early 2020, our weekend place became our fulltime home. For a while, my husband worked at a desk in our master bedroom. But, after a year, we built him a separate office on our property. And, here we are 3 ½ years later. Home.

Home where we have established deep, lasting relationships with wonderful neighbors. Home where I have immersed myself into volunteer work and found new passions and ways to harness what I’ve learned as a grieving mother into helping others. Home where our grandkids still come to play in the river and build bonfires and learn to drive on the dirt roads. Home where Rachel’s ashes rest under the little oak tree surrounded by decades old oaks and hickories and cypress that provide shade and stability and a promise of long life and eternity.

I know this probably won’t be our last home. Realistically, some day these two acres and the house and dock and maintenance will be too much for us to handle any longer. It would be nice if the grandkids could keep it and make it a weekend place for their families. If they want to. But, I well know that there were more than 35 years between my burgeoning adulthood and the purchase of this river property. So, the likelihood of our grands holding on to it is small.

And, that’s okay. We will by necessity move to some sort of senior care facility. Hopefully not for 20 years or so. But, eventually. And, someone else will call this cypress log house on two wooded acres beside a spring-fed river “home.”

That makes me sad. There are a lot of memories here. And in all the other 15 homes I’ve lived in. But, what’s really HOME? How ephemeral is our time here, even if we live to a ripe old age? At a certain point, our missing of the good old days turns into an ache for eternity. For all the people we may leave behind here, there are an uncountable number of people we will get to be with “there.” And, if we’ve done our job right, and helped to put faith and belief into the hearts of those here, we have assurance we will see them again there.

Home.

---

Laura