Their home.
I’ve written a lot about home recently. Our new home, the homes we left behind, my internal journey towards redefining what home truly means. How Paul has always felt like home to me, my definition has rested comfortably there, in a person - my person - vs a place.
When we made this monumental decision to move our family back north, to put down roots in a place we think we could want to live forever, the core of that decision was to give our boys a little slice of small town life. Of home. It was a decision steeped in values; in how we wanted to help guide their childhood.
In the past I have clung almost desperately to the notion of providing my children with a perfect childhood; focusing on not doing anything that could possibly screw them up into adulthood. I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about how I can make sure they love each other, and love home; that we create a place where they feel safe, loved, and seen. But there is so much I cannot control; and this idyllic notion of childhood, is one of them. When the weight of my role as their parent begins to feel almost unbearable, I remember to let go of that impossible standard and turn upward, then inward.
I lean into the faith that I am creating a sanctuary of home in their hearts by how I live my life; by our home reflecting the values and virtues that we, as a family, hold closest. I try my best to live intentionally; guiding them with compassion, patience, firmness, and love. I give them my best, and let them see how that looks different each and every day. Such an important life lesson. They also see me struggle, watch me overcome. Follow my dreams, while prioritizing what matters most. Pray with them, and for them, out loud. Paul and I model what love and marriage and hard work are really all about; what it takes to support and love your partner for who they are, and how they’ve grown.
In doing so, I pray that home for them means wrestling matches with dad, and reading with mom. Quality time spent in each present moment. A place where imaginations are encouraged to run wild. A place where they can be themselves, feel their feelings, and know someone is always here to hold them; that home is a soft place to land. I hope they one day remember a home filled with music and dancing, bottomless s’mores, and movie nights huddled under thick blankets together. A home where they learned how to walk, ride bikes, throw a baseball, and ran wild with neighborhood kids every summer. That they remember the smell of burgers on the grill, and Nana’s famous banana bread fresh from the oven.
I hope home to be where they also learn how to struggle, to make mistakes, to keep fighting when things get hard. Where they will inevitably hurt each others feelings, and learn to repair that hurt thoughtfully, lovingly. Where they develop the tools necessary to grow as individuals, and in their relationships with one another. Where bonds of brotherhood are forged in faith and friendship. That home is a place where they feel safest. Where they hold onto innocence and youth for as long as possible. I hope when they think of home, they think of love. That home grows into a place in their heart where love bursts at the seams of these four walls, and for each individual in it.
I can’t control or predict the future, but I can shepherd them today, to the best of my ability. I won’t dedicate my life in motherhood to a picture perfect childhood for our boys, but to creating a physical and mental representation of home that is rooted in little more than love, strength, and faith. These boys will know love. They will know God. They will know messy, and loud, tears of joy and of sorrow; how to live life joyfully among the inevitability of both. They will understand the foundation their Dad and I have built in the name of family. And I hope they know we are always, always in their corner.
For our home is not a home - home cannot be defined - without each one of them.
This home, in my heart, is forever theirs.