Chapter Seven

Home.

“There is no place like home”,

“Home Sweet Home”,

“To be at home”,

“Home away from home”,

“Make yourself at home”,

“You can never go home again”

and “Home is where the heart is”.

“When will you be home?”

It’s a fair question that I’m being asked each day. My own personal question is this…. “WHERE will I call home?” Another fair question. Sadly, I do not have the answers to these questions. Part of my journey is to finish this road trip and decide where I will land. Addiction has had me running around its mountain’s edge for far too long, each time I am without my home.

I am not the addict and yet it takes me down, rendering me homeless each and every time it rears its ugly head. As much as I am NOT going to give up on my marriage and the covenant that I have with God through my marriage to Scott, I also do not believe I can or should live in the murky, contaminated waters of addiction’s abuse. I do not say this to disrespect my husband, I love him very much. But, what we are doing isn’t bringing either of us home.

It’s time for something different to happen.

So, I’m trying to find my way home.

When I walked into Cherie and Philip’s house she told me to make myself at home. Warmth instantly overflowed from her heart and it trickled into mine. It was easy to be there.

Cherie gives the gift of home.

The next day, she asked me if I wanted to join her on some errands. Of course, I would, I was excited to spend time with her. To get to know her better.

“I’m gonna take you by where I grew up, okay?” she declared. We made our way down the main road and turned right down Memory Lane (the true name of the street) and into Cherie’s childhood and unexpectantly right into the center of mine as well.

As she shared her memories, I was right there with her. She reminisced about playing outside till dark and how her mother’s whistle was her dinner bell. We went past the school with the playground on the outskirts of the woods, awakening the childhood memories of my own small-town life. My eyes were seeing her childhood, but my mind was back in my own schoolyard. We had a teeter-totter, a swing set, and a slide that sat just outside the woods. The musty ground smell and the dried branches' snapping filled all my senses. And there it was, that thing I had lost along the way. With it came an unexplainable deep joy, a freedom from worry, and an invitation for discovery.

Innocence.

Eventually we all ‘lose our innocence, but when it is abruptly taken, we lose the safety and stability that home provides. Can that sense of safety ever be given back?

“And this the home I lived in, right next to my best friend.” her words snapping me into the present, but still guiding me…my heart leaped with the memory of Lisa Lair and I living next to one another on Race St. and hollering over to one another, “meet ya out front” where we proceeded to have a cheerleading session, make up a new dance move or maybe just sittin’ out on the porch pondering our next big move in life. Some days we played jacks on the kitchen floor, right in the middle of the busyness of her big family living life. With a houseful of children, it was always loud at her house, but it was a good loud. Somehow, I belonged there. I was theirs and they were mine. Sometimes, we’d escape the noise and head to the open field adjacent to our homes…and just run….either way, whatever we did, we laughed till it hurt. Lisa was my person. Probably the first person outside my own family that I considered to be my tribe.

Down the street from Cherie’s childhood home was her family’s big beautiful church where so many cherished memories were born. My own experience; the same. The First Christian Church, FCC as it is now called, was right next to Pop’s house where I had spent just as much time, if not more, than being at home. Grandma and Pop adored me and I knew it. It showed in their eyes. I loved being at their house. I was theirs and they were mine.

The same for the church. As a child, I had big, burning questions about Jesus. Some were answered, but most were not because I usually had ‘just one more question’ before being sent along my way. FCC, a massive brick building, sat right next to Pop’s tiny white country home. I loved running from church to home and back…just to run up and down the church steps. I loved staring up at the building and wondering why Pop’s was so small in comparison to it. If the doors were open, I loved running on the shiny wooden floors. The sounds and smells of the wood are forever etched in my mind. The sermons themselves were boring, but I loved Sunday School where I could ask kid-sized questions. And, I loved being with all my friends.

“I love my church. It holds it all.” Cherie said, reading my mind. We sat parked at a light, but her eyes were on the church building, lost in her own past. “I was baptized, grew up in this church and Philip & I were married here” she finally said. Philip and Cherie have gone on to have beautiful children, grandchildren, and a family business; a legacy born and raised in Small Town, Alabama.

This town was her ‘somewhere’.

This trip down Memory Lane with her was like driving through my own past except where she had gone right I had gone left. She was deeply rooted here. A picture of a firmly-rooted tree comes to mind when I compare her past to mine. Everything about mine had been uprooted. 

Innocence interrupted.

The image of the tree wouldn’t leave my mind, so, later that night, I googled the process of replanting an uprooted tree.

When a tree is uprooted, there are steps to take to save the tree, if the roots are still intact.

Dig a Little Deeper

Before replanting the tree, you need to deepen the hole the tree will be in so that it is well supported. A good support system is crucial. Be careful not to damage any of the roots, while you are deepening the hole.

Holding the Tree Up

The tree needs to be upright for you while you pack the soil around it. Have someone hold it up if necessary. If any of the roots are bent or twisted, be sure to adjust them appropriately before packing down the soil.

Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate

Be sure to water the tree every day. Water establishes its root system.

Prune Away

Dead limbs will suck nutrients away from the healthy parts of the tree. It is best to remove dead limbs as close to the tree as you can to ensure that the tree is able to use nutrients as efficiently as possible.

Credit: earthinhandlandscape.com

The replanting process is currently taking place in me and as painful as it is, I’m grateful for it.

I will continue seeking and believing that perhaps I’ll be home soon.