Home is where our Story Begins
With the loss of my parents, my thoughts seek comfort in the very place they built for our family – our childhood home.
Home is truly where our story begins.
Wherever life takes me – the home where I was raised anchors my heart. Within its walls is a lifetime of memories cherished by an epic family and a universe filled with never-ending dreams. For no other place saw me inch into a secret corner playing hide-and- seek, gloried in the magic of complex math problems unraveling at the family study table, inhaled the delicious scent of my mother’s cooking or rejoiced at the distinct sound of my father’s feet pressing down on the steps.
Inside this blessed place is where a family’s dreams of all that could be – truly began.
I believe that a house is quite different than the place we call home.
Capturing this truth is the sweet story “A House that Once Was, But Now Isn’t a Home.” Julie Fogliano tells the tale of two children happily playing in the forest. Unexpectedly, they come upon an old house hidden amidst the trees. Curious, they find an open window and climb inside. Sadly, all within the heart of this house was fading away.
Like a footprint lost to the rain.
Surrounded by a blanket of sadness, the youngsters begin to wonder about the people who once called this place home.
Who were they?
Where have they gone?
Will they return someday?
Are they happy?
Moments later, the children leave the old house anxious to return to the loving place they called “home.”
Our childhood home is cherished not by its mortar or beams.
It is loved because it holds generations of family joy and a sea of unforgettable moments that shape who we become with enduring permanence.
In sharing the story of my childhood home, I hope to honor the legacy of my parents.
Remembering my roots is a doorway to receive grace into my heart promised to all who do not forget God’s faithfulness. Here, He speaks his terms of remembrance to Joshua concerning the entrance of the Israelites into the land of promise:
“Choose twelve men, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the river and tell them to put them down at the place where you stay (Joshua 4:1).
The stones were to be placed before the people advanced as a memorial of God’s love that carried them through the storms of life. I remember all that God gave and built upon the “rock” of our home, his love made visible through the light of my mother and father.
“Oh, my soul, bless the Lord and everything within me, bless his holy Name. Forget not my soul, the favors He has bestowed on me.” Deo gratias. Deo gratias. Deo gratias.
Through every peak and valley – our “red-brick’ home stood tall.
Loyal, protecting and true – its invisible arms lovingly holding us decade after decade. Even with a large family of nine, numbers had no bearing on the heart of generosity my parents shared with relatives and friends.
They lived the way the ancient hymn sings, “Where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found. Brought here together by Christ’s love, by love are we thus bound.” Whatever the count, our parents welcomed everyone.
As we changed – our home changed with us.
In the early years, our home was young and playful. On steamy summer nights, the front stoop was our place to sit and savor orange juice ice-pops whimsically made by our mother, chat with neighbors, play boxball or watch fireflies glistening by in the thick of night. Through bitter cold winters, clanking radiators kept us warm without fail.
Under the roof of our home were seven sleeping children sharing two rooms to call our own. The larger held four, the smaller embraced three. The place saved for each of us welcomed our return at day’s end, no matter what. Sometimes greeted by cheerful laughter, stretching yawns or with bedtime resisting tears – we tucked our soft pillow and drifted off to sleep.
Growing into the school years, our home evolved into an academic world of learning. Each night, our father called us to the dining room table, the working space where we reviewed homework with him, came with hard questions and left with answers. No one skedaddled without our father’s initials scripted by hand at the top of the finished work.
Our home also became a silent teacher of great wisdom, preparing each child’s entry into the world. Every room brought tangible ways to cultivate respect for each other, model the giving heart of our mother, the deeply grained work ethic of our father, a praying life, learn the meaning of integrity and responsibility, how to stand up for truth, engage in dinnertime talk and always encounter the joy of a miraculous Christmas morning.
Then there are the stairways – one carpeted and the other not for a time. Our home smiled watching us belly slide down the steps “head-first” using our hands as feet. When running late, we skipped the bottom three, jumping down for a faster exit out the front door. And when trying not to wake anyone, we cleverly maneuvered over the creaky steps threatening to blow our cover.
The steps were the reliable mode of transport keeping our household in constant motion. Up and down our trusting staircase we went, full of happy energy, slowing our pace just a bit when Sunday pancakes called us to breakfast. Saturday mornings were different. My father got us up early to care for our home, clean our rooms, wash dishes, get the laundry, done, make beds and put our stuff back in order.
The work was finished when the work was well done.
The yard was the place for summer “hibachi” barbecues, offering its space to escape the heat inside a three-foot swimming pool continuously filled with frigid water pouring out of a snaking green hose. Inside this icy tank is where our imagination ran wild and free. We swam water tag into huge waves, and created colliding whirlpools in an imagined storm at sea all while dodging swooping dragonflies until every lip was colored purple blue.
These were glorious years.
Grace was on the other side of our home’s front door made of thick wood.
There our parents were, always praying and waiting for every single one of their children to return to the nest. They were the life force that kept the bonds of our home divinely secure in God’s love.
When struck by the horrific attack on America (2001), the vineyard that was our home tragically took on the broken identity as the 9-11 house suffering the inconsolable loss of a beloved.
Through this, our home covered us as we groaned tears on its floors, mourning the taking away of one of our own – our brother James. Having loyally sheltered this family of nine for decades, the heart of our home would remain pierced forever. And through our grief, it did not cease to shine the light of the sun through its windows.
“Like a palm tree, I will multiply my days, my root is open near the waters to enjoy them better and the dew shall dwell in my inheritance; my glory shall always be renewed and my bow repaired in my hand.” – Job
Porch-time was central to our family’s way of life.
It offered a wonderful place to sit unhurried, listen to the sound of cicadas, and enjoy the cooling night breeze. The porch of our home was the welcoming dock for milk bottle deliveries, the morning mail, stories shared with neighbors, and the never-ending line of Electrolux salesmen eager to showcase the newest vacuum cleaner.
Country singer Tracy Lawrence has a song in which the refrain is, “If the world had a front porch like we did back then . . .”
I understand her sentiment. It is hard to explain the gift of a front porch to those who may have not grown up with one. All the porch-time moments spent with my parents atop our humble veranda are cherished memories. Recalling the times spent with my mother to look for newly formed crisp buds sprouting from her plants live on forever in my heart. Year after year, she loved and cared for her sweet array of flowers quietly adorning our porch corner.
The moments shared with my father in this humble space are also too numerous to count. In the later years of his life, he made every effort to enjoy time on the porch despite his paralysis. On one chilly fall morning, I wrapped a blanket across his strong shoulders to keep him warm. I sat next to him, took his hand, and watched his beautiful black hair swirl in every direction as the wind blew. After a few minutes of quiet, I took out my phone and searched for the symphony soundtrack to Superman.
We said nothing, receiving the beauty as the orchestra played
https://youtu.be/EBatxZ90wag?si=HejAe-1gAyn4Frkl
In rare moments such as these, the Truth that a soul can be united with another in profound love is as real as our heartbeat.
Returning to the home where our life story began brings us back to not only our roots, but to once again reclaim ourselves.
It is a fleeting chance to relive our story from the very beginning. Regardless of all the homes we may inhabit, the treasury of memories held within this first dwelling place are as irreplaceable as our fingerprint.
In our return home, we are like the dove finding joy, when she returns to Noah on the ark.
Only this abiding place holds the mystery of our lives knitted together as a family. Moving past its front door connects us back to the world of yesterday, to remember all those we cherish in our heart.
To once again see all the things we held so dear – the soft glow of the living room lamp, the tiny bathroom sink, recall the paper dolls made, the bunkbeds climbed, forts built and the sweet toys that that filled every room corner.
In the words of philosopher Gaston Bachelard, “The home maintains the family through the storms of the heavens and through those of this life. It is body and soul. It is the human being’s first world. Before the family is cast into the world, it is laid in the cradle of the home. Life begins well, protected, all warm in the bosom of that home.”
And no home will ever be like our first.