When a baby is born, one of the most exciting activities is to bring the baby home. Parents greet this occasion with joy in their hearts because this is where their child will (hopefully) blossom and feel secure. But the moment parents consider bittersweet is the moment their child moves on to a new home…or is it home? What defines a home?
Home is where you feel you belong. It’s where you are with the people who love you and support you. There is a difference between a house and a home. The word house carries a literal undertone. It’s a structure. It’s the roof over your head that your parents or other loved ones work tirelessly to provide you with. A home, on the other hand, is more or less a feeling.
About a month before I started college, I had a deep conversation with my dad about my fears towards leaving him and my mom behind to start a new chapter of my life. His definition of home was a little bit different from what my definition was at that time due to the fact that his father, my grandfather, was a Baptist minister who was often reappointed to serve new churches throughout West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. My dad has lived in more houses than he can count, but I have lived in the same house since I was around two years old. During the conversation, he explained to me that he considers many different places “home”. Not to my surprise, one place he considers home is the house where he and my mother raised me, the same house I grew up in. He also said that he considers North Carolina to be his home. Not just the house in North Carolina where my grandmother lives in now, but the state of North Carolina. It’s a place that is familiar to him, a state where he spent a portion of his childhood, a place that he loves and will always treasure.
I owe a huge thanks to my dad for helping me realize that home is not a building and for allowing me to update my narrow-minded definition of home. Home is not marked by the address you list as your official residency. In fact, it is not the building itself, but what happens inside the building that determines whether a house is a home. Since going to college, I’ve expanded my horizons and not only found a new home, but determined my true homes. The house I grew up in, and to quote Miranda Lambert, “the house that built me”, will forever be considered a home in my heart. Through all the peaks and valleys, I’ve always had that yellow-sided house with the pumpkin patch where my father and I have grown pumpkins for over a decade. It’s filled with a tremendous amount of memories that define who I am as a person. It’s where my parents and my dog live regularly and the place where I live when I am not in school. I also consider my grandmother (Ma-Maw)’s house to be a home. It’s a place that you never leave with an empty stomach, a place where I can escape to when I need a reminder of what truly matters in life. Ma-Maw’s house is filled with memories that I cling to. Oh and I should mention, it’s the place where my Ma-Maw, also known as the most selfless, strong-willed and Godly person in the entire world, lives. The final place I call home is my current regular residence, my dorm hall on campus. In just one semester, my hall mates have gone from being total strangers to practically family. These people have supported me in all my endeavors and made me feel loved. As far as I’m concerned, a sense of security, a feeling of appreciation, and lasting memories are what define the word home.
A home doesn’t have to be the place where you live currently. The way I see it, a home is a place with memories. If you are away from home, you will likely feel a calling to come home at some point because, as I once read, memories are the architecture of our identity. The desire to be at home is embedded in each and every of us. We all want to be loved. We all want a home, a haven to call our own.
