Fortune Cookie Friday: Home Sweet Home

As I write this week’s post, I am sitting in my parent’s living room. I have spent the last 24 hours with my mom, because she is having difficulty getting around on her own. She was sad and a bit scared, so I stayed with her to make her feel more comfortable in her own home.

I spent the night sleeping in the house I grew up in, even though I don’t live there anymore. It was…interesting. I missed my comfy bed and waking up to the smell of fresh coffee brewing. A chocolate lab greeted me this morning instead of my own orange tabby. There wasn’t the morning routine of children getting ready for school while listening to the morning news, no last minute schedule checks and wishing them a good day.

It wasn’t what I was used to, but there was still that feeling of home. I reminisced about the past last night as I listened to the hot water heater turning on and all of the other odd sounds of the house of my childhood. I remembered times around the dinner table and evenings playing card games.

It wasn’t long before I thought about my own kids going off to college, and leaving empty rooms of youthful knick-knacks and off-season clothes. They will have to make a new home, all be it a temporary one, in some dormitory very different from their room back home. They will make their own new memories with the friends boarding with them.

You can live in many houses throughout your life, but just as the fortune says, home is where the heart is. It’s all of those experiences with family and friends, that make you laugh and make you cry. It’s those times that you look back on and say, “Hey, do you remember when…” and everyone smiles and nods their heads. When you share your heart with others under the same roof, you make a house a home.