Home Again, Home Again

Every time my dad pulled the family car into our driveway, he quoted, “Home again, home again, jiggedy jig”. Later I discovered the nursery rhyme source, but to me the phrase was our family tradition for marking the end of a trip.
Recently, I gained new appreciation for the significance of coming home.

 According to personality tests, I am an introvert. Although I’m loud at parties, and the first kid with my hand up in any class, I need to balance social interaction with plenty of time alone. When this summer's calendar held two non-stop weeks of being with relatives and meeting strangers, I knew I was heading for trouble. 
Both events were welcome, one week with my three daughters and their families, and a second week in Austin, Texas with relatives and other guests at my great-niece's wedding. However, had the choice been mine, I would not have scheduled such visits back to back.

During the preceding weeks I asked God to give me patient stamina and unselfish love. I had little faith that I could sail peacefully through the tiring, though valued, interactions, and required group activities, along with the added buzzing of  seven dear children who ranged in age from 2 to 11. 
Help me, please!

Sure enough, the fortnight was draining. I slept, or rather tried to sleep, in guest rooms and motels, nursing an attack-cold all the while. Up and down subway stairs, through tedious airports and during long highway drives, I kept smiling (there are photos) and doing the next thing expected of me. Fatigue increased as I tried to be a good mom and grandmother, a sweet aunt and sister.
“God, please keep my tongue from saying anything critical or cranky.”
As usual, my faithful husband was the one who suffered my private complaints. 
There was no miracle of calm inner seas, but I found surprizing endurance and enjoyed good conversations that deepened relationships. It was a pleasure to watch family and friends have fun together as I dragged myself around in the heat, ready with cough drops and tissues.

Besides illness and fatigue, a third companion on the marathon was my longing for home. I confess that my favourite place on earth is my bed on Humbervale Boulevard. Denied it for two whole weeks (and not on retreat at a hushed convent), I felt like I was only half alive. I staggered from the overload of noise, activity and strong emotions, not alone enough to regain stability. 

God did give me one quiet break, just long enough to catch a second wind. On our first morning in Austin, my husband shook me awake at the motel saying,
 “It’s 8:30. Are you coming for breakfast?” 
Nothing excites him like a free breakfast, no matter its quality. I groaned and stayed in bed until he returned with a sheepish apology, “Oops, I forgot the time change. It was only 7:30.”
As a morning person I was, by then, fully awake and talked him into going immediately to a local labyrinth I’d seen on-line. After that we’d head to Starbucks for real coffee. 
The meditative walk along a labyrinth’s looping path often calms my spirit and helps align my thoughts to God’s better perspective. 

We soon found ourselves, early enough for the breeze to be cool, under shade trees on a spacious property owned by Christ Episcopal Church, Cedar Park. At the opening to the lovely stone-lined labyrinth walkway, I stopped to settle down and to open my needy, tired heart to God. Into my mind came a motherly “There, there”. 
Instead of divine correction of my self-pity I heard tender reassurance.
It felt like getting a letter from home when I was away at summer camp.
I spent a silent hour doing the prayerful, circling walk and ended with more hope for the busy week ahead.

The second exhausting week was a little like a disorienting visit to OZ. This Dorothy encountered challenges and many  happy times, including one that gave her a new perspective on the concept of home. 
One of my nieces and her husband had already raised two capable (smart and beautiful) daughters to adulthood when they, in their Christian faith, took the brave risk of adopting two children, one at a time, each about 6 yrs. old when they moved in. 
The little ones had been tossed to and fro by their need for foster care. Not born siblings, this darling girl and adorable boy have found camaraderie in their similar histories, the details of which are too horrifying to describe. For a while now they have been cared for by devoted, wise parents who are gradually helping them to believe that they have truly come home.
Hearing about the past for these little ones and witnessing the beautiful contrast in their present situation, I imagined what they must feel. For most of their lives they lived without the security of a real home, that ideal place where we’re safe and free to be our unveiled selves. Now, every morning, they awoke in their own bedrooms ready for hugs and laughter with their forever family. 

My story here about two weeks of family visits is a shallow comparison to any orphan’s or refugee’s painful saga, but when I finally sank onto mine own little bed in Toronto, I almost wept with relief. Oh, the comfort of familiarity and security. At last I could fully relax. 
Ruby slippers off, I sighed, “There’s no place like home”.

How we hope that Christian belief is right, that life after death will feel like arriving where we belong, at home with the One who unfailingly welcomes us in.