Home

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. 
- Robert Frost

When my son Nathan was in first grade, his teacher created a ring full of laminated Fry words for each student. Fry words—or sight words—for those who haven’t yet entered the public education realm, are a list of the first words children learn to read on sight, without sounding them out. Every week, Nathan would add another 10 or 20 words to the ring, and we’d go through them all each night.

A couple of months into the school year, we sat down on the couch for our nightly routine of Fry words followed by a book. As I picked up the ring and began to flip through, Nathan told me his favorite word was in that week’s batch.

“Really?” I asked. “Which one is it?”

Again.
Away.
Back.
Before.
Good.

“Look, Mom! There it is! There’s my favorite word,” Nathan said, pointing at the next word on the ring.

Home. His favorite word was home.

***

I grew up next door to my grandparents. For 18 years, at least a few times a week I would make my way across the yard for a chat or a treat or to play. Aside from my brother and my parents, my grandparents were the most constant presence in my life. I wouldn’t know that my experience was out of the ordinary until adulthood, when I discovered that most of my peers viewed grandparents as the people they saw once or twice a year at the holidays.

Two years ago this summer, my grandmother passed away after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer. Before moving to hospice care, she spent a few days in the hospital as they adjusted her medicines for optimal pain control. The morphine they gave her often left her muddled and confused at best, with the occasional hallucination. One evening when I went to visit her, she asked me why the nurse continued to allow a dog into her room.

“What dog, Grandma?” I asked, amused.

She rolled her eyes and gestured to the (empty) foot of her bed.

“Well he’s right there; don’t you see him? He’s very well-behaved but honestly, you wouldn’t think they’d allow dogs to roam in a hospital, would you?”

“That’s a fair point,” I said, deciding agreement was the path of least resistance. “I’ll say something at the nurse’s station on my way out.”

The next night, we were at my brother-in-law’s house for dinner when my cell phone rang. It was my grandmother’s number; I pushed back from my seat at the table and walked down the hall to answer it.

“Grandma?” I said when I picked up. “Is everything okay?”

“I want to go home,” was all she said.

“I know Grandma, but you can’t just yet,” I answered. “You’ll be able to soon.”

“I want to go home,” she said again.

“I know you do,” I said. “Grandma, is there anyone there with you? Can I talk to your nurse?”

“I want to go home.”

“I know you do; I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“I want to go home.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I know you do.”

“I think I’m tired,” she finally said.

“Okay Grandma, why don’t you close your eyes and get some rest and I’ll see you tomorrow?” I said.

“Okay. I love you,” she said.

I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times my grandmother said she was proud of me. The number of bleachers she sat on to watch me, how many report cards I showed off for her to gush over. How many Friday nights I laid on the floor of her den, eating popcorn and watching a Herbie movie or the number of times she let me lick the spoon while she baked something delicious.

I knew I was loved, but I love you’s were rare. I remember each of them, and they can be counted on two hands.

“I love you too, Grandma. Goodnight.”

I don’t know why she called me that night, instead of my grandfather. Or my parents. Or my aunt. But maybe she picked up her phone that night, saw my name, and it felt like home.

Two weeks later, my grandmother passed away peacefully in her own bed.

***

I was a month into my freshman year of college on Sept. 11, 2001. I remember the phone call from my roommate’s mom that woke me up in time to turn on the television and watch an airplane fly into the second World Trade Center. My suitemates and I spent the day clustered around the television and listening to fighter jets scream overhead—our campus was 30 miles from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and protective flyovers had been ordered. There were rumors that we would go to war, that gas would be $5 a gallon by the next day, that the interstate between Knoxville and Nashville was shut down and we couldn’t get home, even if we’d tried.

We did end up in a war. Gas didn’t rise to $5 a gallon, but I can’t fill up for less than $20 anymore either. 

And in all my life, I’ve never wanted to be home as badly—and been unable to get there—as I did on Sept. 11th, 2001.

***

Shelter-in-place.
Safer-at-home.
Social distancing.

None of those words meant anything eight weeks ago. And now?

Now, in an effort to save our neighbors and ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, we spend nearly all of our time at home.

One could argue that it’s not terribly different from my pre-coronavirus, pre-everything-has-changed-and-now-nothing-will-ever-be-the-same routine. After all, I work exclusively from home. I am an indisputable introvert, someone who almost always prefers the comfort of my couch and the company of a good book to any social engagement. 

With that said, I’ve struggled just as much as the next person in the adjustment to our new normal. Okay, maybe not just as much—everyone check on your extroverted friends who live alone, please—but the days have been long and relentless in that their only variation is which bad news they bear. 

There was the day my husband lost his job.
The day I found out my dear friend in New York was sick.
And then there are the unknown days to come.

Frankly, I’ve never been so scared. 

But I’ve also never been so glad to be home.

Home is my people: my husband and two children, to be sure. But also Zoom happy hour dates and texts throughout the day just checking in. It’s the notes of encouragement we’ve received in the mail, the job referrals, the Venmo from a friend for pizza-night money.

Home is Bill Withers and James Taylor and Garth Brooks playing on the record player while I cook dinner and fresh-baked cookies in my grandmother’s Tupperware on the counter.

Home is a promise I’m clinging to, more than it is a place. 

It’s not just the modest ranch we pay a mortgage on. It’s peace and safety and love.

I’ve heard it said that in life we’re all really just walking each other home. Today, maybe that’s happening from six feet of social distance and over video chat software and through fervent, tearful prayers muttered a dozen times a day.

But we are together even when we’re apart, and we’re finding our way home.