There’s no place that’s home

I handed Cindy her coffee as she was standing, lately she has been more likely to drink it that way. I turned to continue cooking the eggs and did not notice her hold on the coffee cup was limp. That is a sign her mind is off somewhere else. Usually I intervene before an accident happens, but this time she spilled 2/3’s of the cup when my back was turned. Then her shoulders slumped and folded inwards as she cried.

I pulled her away from the scene of the crime and hugged her as I kept reiterating things like “that’s no big deal,” “accidents happen all the time,” “don’t worry about that” and, of course, “there’s no use crying over spilled coffee.” I knew the spill was not her real concern so much as the cause. She sobbed in a very small voice: “I want to go home.”

We live in the house I was raised in, a modest home in a modest neighborhood near the village center of a rural town. To me, staying here during our marriage was “business as usual” and not as big a deal as some might think. For Cindy, a nature girl with a suburban upbringing, this home was a dream come true. All my career decisions were made with staying in Norfolk in mind, more for her than for me, a person always willing to explore. We used to joke and make clear to townsfolk that Cindy was the committed one between us to staying in Norfolk.

Cindy has taken full advantage of living in her dream home. She became fully engaged with the church, at one time becoming senior deacon. She became fully engaged in youth activities, becoming the leader of two Girl Scout troops simultaneously. She became fully engaged in the fellowship of Norfolk, forming close friendships involved in cooking, gardening and quilting. Now she has lived in her dream home longer than anywhere else. I know that in rational moments there is no other place that can compare to Norfolk as her home, not even where she spent most of her time growing up.

I write often about the need for us to belong to others. Almost as important as belonging to people is our belonging to place. The feeling of unconditional love, if not quite as rewarding, can be applied more easily to a special place. We love to be in a place where the connections run deep, with the sense that you have contributed in your own way to the meaning of that place, a place that you feel embraces you as much as you embrace that place. Norfolk unmistakably is that place for Cindy, the place of belonging, the place she calls home.

Most of the time Cindy knows this is her home. For those moments when her mind is somewhere else I’m not really sure where her home is. I’m not sure she is even thinking of a place when she longs for home; more like a time when she could focus on the coffee cup she is holding. Since neither the place nor time exists any longer to satisfy these dire moments, moments when there’s no place that’s home, I shudder to imagine the homelessness that might run through her estranged mind. Perhaps the estrangement is similar to a homeless veteran come back from war. All I can do for these estranged moments is to hold her until her mind drifts back to belonging to her real home.

There is another explanation for her longing to be home in moments of sadness, not laced so much with despair. Maybe, just maybe, Cindy longs to be home with God. In that case I wish her transition from her Norfolk home to heavenly home be as seamless as possible.