Home?

It's funny the places we call home. Right now I am at a hotel in Sarasota FL. I am about six or seven miles from the hospital in which I was born and maybe twenty-some miles from the home where I grew up... and I am staying in a hotel. My grandmother's funeral is tomorrow so it is kind of like an impromptu reunion. There's not a large group of us, but all that can are congregating tomorrow to stand at the graveside as they lay the body that used to contain my grandmother into the ground.

So, we are home. Today my family and I visited my old high school, favorite beach and the house my parents built in Nokomis. I had to sneak through the woods on the edge of the property just to see what my old "home" looked like under new ownership. After some time in the afternoon sun at North Jetty, we ate pizza at one of my old favorite spots and told the boys that we would be home (our hotel) before long and that we needed to get ready for bed quickly because we had a big day ahead.

Home. Florida? Yes. Colorado? Yes. North Carolina? Yes. Where the heart is? Yes. But maybe it's more than just the heart. Maybe home is where the soul connects. When I am on vacation, home is the place I can recharge. Sleep. It's where whoever you are with can gather and talk about the things that happened that day. It's where laughter and loose muscles come easier and I can walk around barefoot without feeling like I am being watched. Home is a deep breath.

Tomorrow will be a sad day. It will be a happy day. It will be a long day. A hot day. Tomorrow I will be one of the people carrying the casket that contains my grandmother's body to a big hole in the ground. Tomorrow we will smile as we talk about Grammie going "home". Maybe home is simply an earth place that lets us see a piece of the heaven place. I think that tomorrow in a hot graveyard in Lake Placid, FL, the family will be home. Crying, laughing, hugging and sweating... a little bit of home. Until one day we all get to be home with Grammie too.