My Meaning of Home

Open windows are bringing in the earthy breeze and the sounds of the birds. Bella is sitting at the  window with her head resting on the sill. Her nose twitches as she catches things on the wind that rustles her hair. 

I sit at my desk facing the expanse of glass panes that make up the east-facing wall. Where my new yard ends, the field begins. For now, there’s just grass and young pine trees in front of me. At some point there will be buildings that may have a shop or two, though the field will alway be in between. Thinking back on the many places I’ve lived, it’s a good space for me. I can’t honestly say how long I’ll be here, but I can be here a while. It’s a good feeling. It’s been over eight years since I’ve felt this way.

When Gage was alive and the kids were young, we lived in a home we renovated. We moved in a month before JT was born, knowing the work ahead. The first place we tackled was the nursery so that he had the best room in the house. We worked over the next eight years to make that place the best we could, taking breaks for walking to the park, time with friends and our growing family. It was a good place that both our kids remember fondly. 

Some time later, we decided it was time to move. After a very long search, we pulled into the driveway of a home tucked into the woods. Gage put the car in park, looked over to me, and said with all the confidence in the world, “This is it.” A few crazy months later, we made it happen. Moving into the dream house, as the kids call it, was surreal. It took me weeks to feel like it was ours. In this place, we were to raise the kids, grow old, and then retire. Gage hunted deer in the woods behind the house. We sapped the maple trees in the spring. Putting the pool in was a mess, but it was Gage’s dream for the kids to have a similar experience to his growing up.

Two years later, he collapsed in the garage after bringing the kids home from daycare.  When I came home from the hospital after turning off his machines, I couldn’t walk into the garage. I imagined him on the floor, EMS personnel rushing around while the automatic CPR machine crushed his chest. Slow and methodical, I could hear the whooshing sound of the machine in my head for a long time. 

After the first few months of shock, my mind could consider what that home meant to me. Walking, sleeping, and being in that place wore me down. It was our dream and it hurt me to be there without him knowing the dream was gone.

Thinking realistically for our family of three, I made our first move back in town. As a single parent of two young kids, I needed the neighborhood and bus access to school. The kids needed to be around other kids. We needed to move forward and staying in the house without him was just too hard.

The new house was a nightmare that took me two years to address. Late nights pulling wallpaper and painting, pulling out kitchen cabinets, tearing and rebuilding walls. Fixing roof leaks and dealing with bats. I had thought that the work would feel rewarding, but it just fueled my anger. I wasn’t meant to be there –  on a ladder at midnight after the kids were in bed, alone with all my grief, tearing tiny strips of flowered wallpaper.

Every place after we left the dream house was temporary. I couldn’t determine where we needed to be. The kids needed a solid home and I couldn’t give it to them. They needed a place to heal and to grow. I couldn’t find it and I couldn’t fix it. Nothing would be like the dream house when their father was alive. And the dream house wasn’t right without him. I felt trapped in his town fixing up houses hoping that each place would be just enough to help the kids. JT’s path was honestly rougher than Shea’s and he needed to be where we were. So we stayed in Gage’s town where the right therapist could lead the way.

Once we were able to get JT to a place where he could stand on his own, it was time for Shea. She brought up an idea for a school move that opened up possibilities for all of us, not just one of us. Together we made a plan and I made it happen. 

So now, I sit at my desk watching the sun break through the steely clouds. Smiling, I feel this is right. As confidently as Gage was the day we pulled up to the dream house.

I know that JT is in the right place, with all the potential ahead of him. He believes in himself and sees the challenge he wants to take on. And Shea is poised to rocket off into her own adventures. This is the right place at the right time for both of them. 

This home can be the stopping-off point for them. It can allow them to rest and refuel before jumping back onto the path they’ll be creating on their own. It’s what Gage and I wanted for them.

That’s not true. Gage wanted a place for them to grow up like he did. His home on the lake was the central place for all his friends in high school. That’s what the dream house was meant to be for us all. I know he would have been a great father to JT and Shea during these years because of the struggles he had with own his parents. He would have made sure those connections were strong and that he was always approachable. He was doing it already before he died.

So I can’t give him what he wanted for the kids because he’s not here to make it happen. It’s not about the home we live in, but what he would have meant to the kids now and the life we would have had together. I had to make a new plan missing one critical element: Gage.

A fuzzy thought in the background of all this is, what about what I want now? The only thing I wanted for myself in the aftermath of his death was to be free. Free of the chains of a failed life that Maple Plain represented. Living there after he was gone simply felt wrong to me. I did what the kids needed do, but it wasn’t what I wanted. 

Being here now, looking over the field in my new backyard, I don’t know what I want for me. I know what I want for the kids and even the damn dog, but what do I want? I really don’t know.