Joe Mazzella
When I was a boy we lived in my Nana’s 75-year-old house on a little hill above a river that was crossed by a swinging bridge. On the hill above us lived an older couple in a white house. Then when I was 11 years old a fire in the night burned down our home. Thankfully we all escaped with our lives, but our house and everything we owned were gone.
Later when I was an adult the older couple who had lived on the hill above us passed away and my older brother bought their home. I would visit him there sometimes and one time I decided to go down to where our old house used to be. The burned wreckage had been covered with dirt long ago and now there was nothing there but a tangled mass of weeds. I tried to picture our old home there but couldn’t. It was gone. That home only existed in the memories in my mind and the feelings in my heart. I smiled sadly and drove back to my own place.
When I opened the door I was met with big smiles and happy hugs from my little girl and boy. I hugged them back and laughed. I was home!
I have lived in a lot of places over the years: dormitories, apartments, and houses. It took me a long time to see that none of them were really home. Home isn’t a place. Home is inside of us. Home is anywhere we can share our love, our kindness, and our joy. Home is wherever the people we love are.
Every place we live can be home if we bring our heart to it. Every place we live can be home if we fill it with laughter, peace, and happiness.
The truth is our home is where our love is. We take our home with us wherever we go. Yet, I know deep in our souls all of us long to go back to our true home again. We long to return to the place we came from, a place of never-ending love, joy, and light. We long to return to our Heavenly Father’s arms and see those we love again. And when our time here is over we will.