Spouse Calls column: Dec. 14
“Home is where the heart is.”
— Pliny the Elder (writer, military man)
I have one. Maybe you have one too. Plenty of military families do. It might be framed and sitting on a shelf, or perhaps hanging on the wall. It proclaims: “Home is where the (fill in your branch of service here) sends us.”
This is not a statement of resignation for our family, but a statement of determination. Determination is what it takes to keep the home fires burning when we are far from the familiar, sometimes separated by deployment – and when we don’t even have a fireplace.
Much has been written about the nature of home and how to find it. Here are thoughts from some well-known people and some well-traveled military spouses:
“Home is where you gather courage, store up hope, build your faith and share your joy,” said Rita Glenn, whose husband is in the Army.
“It's not a place; it is the people who surround you and shelter you with their love,” Rita said via e-mail. “For me, it means that wherever I am in this world, I can always feel at home.”
“It’s not the home I love, but the life that is lived there.”
— Elsie De Wolfe (interior decorator)
“Home is where the Christmas decorations are,” said Air Force wife Janice Codispoti.
“I grew up in the same house and have fond memories of Christmases there. Opening up presents by the fire on the cold tile floor, the stockings always in the exact same place by the fire, the tree in front of the picture window, the banister decorated – always differently, but always the same banister,” Janice wrote.
“But my kids have lived in so many houses; there isn't one place that comes to mind when they think of their family Christmas. But those Christmas decorations – I am reminded each year of how important they are to my kids – and even to (my husband) Joe!”
“Even as we are unpacking each decoration or ornament – before they are even placed in an appropriate spot – these things speak of home to my family. If I decide my tastes have changed, or something is worn out beyond it's beauty, or I can't find a good place to put something and hint at getting rid of it or just not using it this year, there is a swift and fierce uprising at my house!”
“For my girls, there is no one place that comes to mind when they think of Christmas. Our Christmas decorations transform each new house in each new place into a powerful trigger of memories and tradition.”
“We build our memories not on a place, but on these traditions. Home is wherever the Air Force sends us, and we have built wonderful memories in each place.”
“Christmastime is when whatever house we are living in really becomes ‘home,’” Janice said.
“The journey is my home.”
— Muriel Rukeyser (poet, activist)
"Home is where we tuck our toes in at night," said Army wife Cheryl Stark.
“We, like most military families, have lived in so many different places that home has become a subjective term,” Cheryl wrote. “It no longer signifies a set place but more a mindset. When we are together as a family, we are ‘home.’”
"Home isn't where our house is, but wherever we are understood.”
— Christian Morgenstern (poet)
"Home is where my kids aren't embarrassed to let me lavish them with hugs and kisses," said Felicia Salgado, an Air Force veteran and spouse.
“Home is the nicest word there is.”
— Laura Ingalls Wilder (writer, pioneer)
And that says it all.
Home for the holidays, eventually
I used to define “home” by where I tucked my children in at night, but since my older two moved out for college and jobs and lives of their own, “home” has been revised to mean, “where we gather on Christmas day.”
As many a parent of children attending college overseas can attest, flights to get them “home” around the holidays are not cheap and are subject to the whims of weather and irritable airline personnel. Such is the case today as I sit in helpless anticipation of my children’s arrival – but not on the flight I scheduled and paid for that would’ve taken them through the southern half of the United States in hopes of avoiding a wintry delay. They’ve been rerouted through Detroit with a connecting flight to Europe that is still tentative and I feel like I’ve been hit in the duodenum.
Their initial flight was cancelled because of a fog bank the size of a small mountain. They are now winging their way by car to another airport where the sky has not fallen. If only that were the end of it.
As many a parent of adult children can attest, the younger an adult child is, the more they think they know and the more likely they are to do something so contrary to a parent’s best unsolicited advice that it sends the mother into a fury of cleaning things she cleaned the day before and the father to his garage where he takes inventory of his screwdrivers and talks out loud to no one. Not that this is what’s happening in our house. I’m just speculating.
I have invoked the don’t-ask-don’t-tell rule with regard to their mode of travel because I am painfully aware of their limited options. Basically it all boils down to a friend’s mother’s car - a heap of relative metal that could be a white trash vehicular poster child with its bobby pin-linkage and plethora of duct tape and plastic, the latter of which was proudly proclaimed by the friend to have been heisted from the dumpster of an establishment that has been linked to gang activity.
Since Sato was my travel agent of choice, I called them to find out if the travel insurance I purchased included power tools loud enough to muffle my husband’s occasional solitary outbursts and a valium-drip for me. Sadly, the answer was no.
I’m going to go vacuum the yard until my children call from the nearest airport.
Hopes
I hope your yard is good and clean and your chicks are back in the nest soon!
Christmas
I always liked this comment. All Hearts Come Home for Christmas.
Not about geography
I like that too! In the military, we learn our hearts can be at home even when geography suggests otherwise.
Terri