Feels like home to me

Chantel Kreviazuk sings a beautiful song about finding love.  What sticks with me is the refrain:
"It feels like home to me...like I'm all the way the back where I come from...like I'm all the way back where I belong."

And that is what I am feeling right now, as I sit in a Starbucks in Southern California.  Its really warm outside but the heat is very familiar and somewhat comforting.  For the next 6 days, I am home.  Home with my parents, home with old classmates, home with friends.  I never thought that being here would bring my heart so much joy but it has.

When I landed in Ontario on Thursday morning, I was met by my beautiful friend, Ester.  It was the warmest smile and best hug any person could have gotten when out of their comfort zone.  Over the next 5 hours, we hung out, chatted like lifelong friends and I found that "home" feeling with her.  I met her thru her husband, whom I have known since high school.  He and I have been good friends over the years and Ester was his wife.  For a long time, that was who she was to me.  Not for any reason other than Renato was my friend and she was his wife.  After Maureen's passing, she stepped up and extended her hand to me, in love and friendship.  What I have received from that moment has blessed me profoundly.  Ester is an honest, sincere, devout Christian woman.  She speaks honestly yet with such grace and integrity.  I know any advice I receive from her will be a reflection of God's will, as she lives her life to be accountable to God.  I admire her faith and walk. 

She brought me to my parent's home.  They weren't expecting me so it was a pleasant surprise.  In looking at them, I realize how limited my time with them is.  Dad has slowed considerably over the past few years.  I fear he will not be around much longer.  Most days he sits, talking about pains and aches and there is nothing I can do about it but listen and love him.  He is weak and feeble, no longer the tower of strength I once knew but I love him still.   Mom, on the other hand, hasn't changed a bit.  She is a fireball who works tirelessly morning to night.  She is up at the crack of dawn, cleaning, doing laundry and taking care of dad and their dog, Becky.  She does not stop and I am sometimes exhausted just from watching her.  Becky, their dog, is 7 and sick.  She is skin and bones, refusing to eat.  She is mom's life.  I fear that if she dies, mom will also, but from a broken heart.  I am praying very hard that death will not grace my doorstep for a long time. 

Over the next few days, I will be meeting with grade school friends, work friends and life long friends in general.  I am excited!  Some people I haven't seen in many years, some just last year.  Regardless, seeing everyone will give the shot in the arm I so desperately need right now.  While we have all aged, our history together is the solid foundation that I stand on.  In some cases, we go back to first grade.  I know these people and they know me.  They are my "home" in so many ways.
 
Even as I write this, I have gotten messages from people I haven't seen in a long time asking to get together.  I am so humbled that people still want to see me.  I moved to WA 9 1/2 years ago yet people here still like me enough to want to see me.  Its such a blessing, especially for a girl who has always felt insignificant.  Until recently, I didn't think my life mattered.  I am beginning to understand that it does, thru trips like these and thru my deepening relationship with my Savior.

I am happy to be here.  And on Thursday, I will be happy to go home again - to my comfort zone, my routine, my friends, my dog, my life, inconsequential as it sometimes seems.  I find much consolation in knowing that home is not a place but a feeling - of joy, of love, of contentment.  And right now, at this moment, I really am home.