Home

The following is from my journal, July 22, 2011.

Night time. Lisa and Tony and Maddie are at the rental. Everyone else is here at our house. Joe is asleep. It's a very quiet. God, you are so gracious. We are in our house. We're back in our house. I say that rather than "our home." If I didn't know it before, I know it now, that "home" is where we are together.

Christmas 2010, we were at home at the Residence Inn in Columbia. It was just after a house fire a few days before. In fact when we got to the Residence Inn, at 4 AM on December 24, we were "at home." We had a wonderful Christmas. We had a great Residence Inn breakfast together along with fancy chocolates we brought, as is part of our normal Christmas breakfast tradition. (We did not have my home made crumpets this year but just the same, it was great.)

We exchanged presents, none of which have been damaged in the fire, and we had a wonderful Christmas day together. We had wonderful New Year's Eve at the Residents Inn, also. After a month we moved into a rental house on Cattail Oaks in Glenwood, where we were for six months.

And now, surrounded by boxes, we're back on Fredrick Road. We're in our house. But, we have always been home.