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Mormon mom sees sense of home expanding

Seeing kids return back home from college for the summer has made me think back to my college years. College was a great time of learning. Academically, sure, but mostly I learned about myself, and what I expected of myself as I grew up. I remember that first night in my apartment like it was just yesterday, and it's been thirteen years ago! I shared a room with a girl I had never met, and I shared the rest of the apartment with two other girls, who knew each other well, but didn't know me at all. We had one couch, and a TV stand courtesy of the church dumpster from across the street. I provided the only working TV and radio, and nothing else. I think between the four of us we shared three plates and bowls. It was tight quarters. But we were so happy in that tiny sparsely furnished apartment. It was home for the next two years.

Time marches on, and of course we all went our separate ways, despite late night promises of white picket fences separating our houses all in a row. Marriage, more college, and other decisions took us to many corners of the world. But no matter where we were, we all needed a sense of home. For one girl, that homey feeling came by taking the same houseplant we grew as students to wherever she lived from then on. For me, it meant sleeping with the window open like I used to do on those warm Spring evenings, so I could hear the hum of our air conditioner outside. Simple things can make such a difference in the feeling of home.

Now that I'm an adult, I've lived in a few places that I could call home. Since having children, the security that comes with a stable place to live has become of utmost importance. I only lived in one house as a child. My parents built that house as newlyweds, and my dad still lives there 40 years later. I doubt that I will ever find a place to settle into for 40 years, but I still like to stay planted for a few years, at least. None of my homes as an adult will ever compare to the home I grew up in. But my children don't know any different. As we've moved from place to place, there are still a few things I like to keep to make our house a home.

I keep a white shelf with hooks under it mounted in the kitchen. It is the perfect place for the keys, coats, and aprons. I also keep a white coat hook rack at the kids' level for their backpacks and coats and scarves and hats. There is a set of three wooden trunks that hold blankets for winter and books that don't fit on the bookshelves. Sometimes they've acted as coffee tables, sometimes step stools for mischievous hands, but they have always been a part of the scenery at home. These simple touches are things I hope make a difference for my kids as they grow up and have homes of their own.

My childhood home is changing. The death of my mom brought about a lot of changes in a fairly short period of time. Returning back to that house after being away for a few months was one of the hardest things I've had to endure as an adult. I can say honestly that walking into that house and not feeling the sense of home that prevailed there when my mom was alive, was worse than watching her die. She took the spirit of warmth and inviting that always abounded there. All the furniture was still in place, nothing had moved. But things had definitely changed. As my dad remarries, his life moves on, as it should. In the wake of it all, there is left a shell of a house, a place where kids and grandkids once met each week to enjoy the company of one another, where neighbors used the back door because the front door was people who weren't close friends. A place where it wasn't uncommon to have a few extra vehicles parked for a day or two while someone stayed to visit from out of town. The place that I grew, loved, and left behind, thinking in naivety that it would always be the same.

If only it was as simple as returning home from college. To see all your bedding still in place. All your extra clothes hanging where you had left them. To see the telephone on the countertop where it belongs, and the soap dish next to the sink like it has been for the last hundred years. I won't be privileged enough to see my parents bicker in their old age over the doneness of the steak, or the lateness of the paper arriving. Things have moved on, whether I like it or not. I can never go home again. Now it is my turn to make my house a home for my children.