Week 3: Welcome Home
August 15, 2010Home.
Let me come home.
Home is wherever I’m with you.
Today we went back to check on the house.
It’s weird every time you visit your own house when it’s not home anymore. The only feeling I can relate it to is going back to your old school when you’re an adult, and everything seems both utterly familiar and completely foreign. It’s a little surreal.
I get this every time I go back to make sure the dehumidifiers that are running 24/7 haven’t blown up or to meet Craig to scope out what we need for repairs.
This time my mother in law came along. She hasn’t been to the house yet. She hasn’t been able to bring herself to see it.
As we were getting ready to leave, I saw she was crying. I asked her what was wrong.
“You need a miracle,” she said.
Yeah, I guess we do.
It’s easy to see the crumbling floor, the exposed plaster, the holes and cracks in the walls, the bubbling paint, the random splinters of wood where we ripped off wet and moldy doorways and baseboards. It all seems dizzying and overwhelming. This is not the welcoming place it once was. Not even close.
But it’s still comforting to see our house, no matter what needs to be done. It’s where we began our little family. It’s ours, damn it. It’s home.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last three weeks, it’s that home is not just walls and a roof. We’ve been incredibly cared for and showered with love since Day 1, from family, friends, and strangers. Incredible people we will never be able to repay. Because of that, our family will get through this, and the home that we rebuild will have a whole new meaning.
A miracle? We’ve already have one.
We laugh until we think we’ll die,
Barefoot on a summer night
Nothin’ new is sweeter than with you
Keep up the faith, Tim, Jess, Clara. You’re wonderful people and good things happen to good people. Again, let us know if we can be of help to you.