Home Is Where the Heart Is

Home Is Where the Heart Is

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Cafe

“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere.  That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.”  This quote showed up in my memories on Facebook this week.  That thought strikes me in the solar plexus.  When I am in Chattanooga, I am happy to be near our daughter and son-in-law here and our longtime friends….and I am aware that I am not with our daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren in Maryland…I am aware I am not in Montana with our more recent friends and community there.  And this is indeed the price I pay “for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.” 

Early in our marriage, we put our house on the market.   We were startled that it sold immediately.  Needing housing quickly, we moved in with my mother-in-law while we built another home.  One day while my husband and I were walking around the property which would eventually provide us years of comfort and pleasure, he said, “I could live in a tent with you” which translates to “Home doesn’t depend on building a new house.  Home is with you.” 

Thinking over our years together, I imagine our relationship as a tree, nurtured and rooted during our life.  All those people and places I miss when I am not there are the branches that have grown from this trunk, all part of a whole.  These are not disparate pieces of my life.  I have many  “homes.” They all belong to our story. And for that I am grateful.

“Good friends (I would alter this to say ‘The significant people in your life’) are like stars.  You don’t always see them, but you always know they are there.”

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate