winns angels

About "home"
As we gather around a table we sometimes hear the words "I'm homesick." They moved to Canada from South Africa. When I hear the words, I start thinking about the meaning of home.

I realize how important family is to me even though family may not always be perfect. I think about my own home and the idea of growing up with diabetes. I think about probably being overprotected by very loving parents who wanted the best for me. I think about growing up with this chronic condition and my search for perfection and "normalcy". I think about growing up in the country and my occasional strong desire to return.

I believe home is more about a feeling, a sense of comfort, a need for belonging, than about an actual location. Sometimes we may not have totally experienced this sense as we were growing up but have romanticized the sense and have placed it in the locale in which we lived.

I know I have occasionally felt the desire to leave behind all the responsibilities and choices which come with being an adult. I feel nearly compulsive about giving up the choices for a duration and wish someone else could take over the responsibility. The only time I can see it being allowed more comfortably is as a small child. For myself, many of the carefree moments as a child were stolen because of the need to bring the diabetes under control to prevent complications. Spontaneity seemed out of the question.

Understand I was certainly never deprived. I did feel a need to strive towards perfection. More importantly, I grew up with this love for family. I grew with a desire for knowledge because I loved to read and learn. I grew up with a skill to kindness because that is what I saw around me. I grew up with hope which has kept me going and a faith so strong that it has gotten me through difficult challenges which others might not be able to carry.

Home ~ it's about that place where I feel comfortable. It's about that place where I feel loved. It's about that place I love to return - often. It's about the place I am now trying to establish for my own daughter as she tries to find a place of belonging and comfort for herself.

Home ~ where is it? It might be in Saskatchewan. It might be in South Africa. It might be in a huge city or in the country. It might be in a nursing home, an apartment, a house, or a hut.
For me home is in my heart.