Home

I left my childhood home 18 years ago and have now returned.

I have lived away from home for almost as long as I have lived at home. There is no place like home and there is no-one like my Mum. It is so great to reconnect with the place of my childhood and to reconnect with my Mum.

She is an incredibly warm, soft and strong person. There will be an emptiness in my heart and my life when she eventually dies. Hopefully that will not happpen for a very very long time. But it is great to have this opportunity to really get to know my Mum again and for my children to really get to know their Nan. These are precious times. All time is precious.

I returned home once before for 6 months after my dad passed away. My childhood home is a refuge, a place where I can feel safe and secure and rebuild myself in a world that has greatly changed for me.

There is something here in my childhood home. It is not just wood and bricks. I can not describe it yet but this house is part of me. I am part of it, along with brothers and sisters and my Mum and Dad.

I want to give my children what I have. A home, a place where they will always feel safe and secure and a place where they can rebuild themselves again when the inevitable tragedies of life happen to them. They can be away from home but always know that their home is there ready to heal them at anytime.

The Smell of Home

As I walked from the train station to my car I walked down a nice little residential street in the cold early evening darkness. Nice neat gardens were in front of nice neat houses. Warm soft light emitted through curtained windows. As I walked the smells of the home cooked dinners entered me and took me back in time.

I wished I was coming home from work to one of these houses and my happy children would excitedly greet me at the door and my beautiful wife would smile and kiss me as I walked into our warm home.

I had that life for a while but now that is gone. My life is now very different.

I feel glad that my Dad had that life. But then remembered that before I was born his life was also very different. Maybe like him this life will return to me.