Good to be Back Home Again

Home is wherever those we love are nearby

I am fortunate over the years to have called many places “home.” In each church I have served, during those years its community and people have been home. In the past nine years, Virginia was “home,” and I have such solid memories of people and places during my time there. I am so very grateful I could support Claudia in her life’s work while meeting wonderful people in a beautiful part of our nation. Two of my children and those they love most continue to live in Virginia, so I will always feel positively about that world. But there’s something about being in the place where early life and most of my adult were spent that feels especially like “home.”

It’s kind of like the John Denver song …

In the week that I have lived in my new home, in my new community, in my “old home” state, I can contentedly say, “It’s good to be back home again.” Last night with one of my local community sons, I spent time with my oldest son and his family celebrating a birthday. All of my grandchildren’s birthdays are special, and this grandchild has been close to me over the years, although regrettably the past nine years we have been far apart. I am glad I can now be more present in his life going forward. Here’s the back story.

Twelve years ago yesterday, Claudia and I sat waiting in a hospital maternity waiting room, anticipating of the birth of our fourth grandchild, the first son of our oldest son and his wife. It was a warm, humid June day and the cool interior was a welcome respite from the heat. Periodically, our son would pop out of the area where his son was preparing to enter the world. With a sheepish grin and an endorphin-flooded voice he would update us, until finally he gave us the good news, told us he would be right back, and returned with a warm little bundle of love in his arms.

In those years my oldest son and I were navigating the rough rapids of an emerging adult-to-adult relationship, one in which I was the one to blame for the interpersonal acrimony. I am not proud to write it, but I had created distance in our relationship with uncharitable and unrealistic attitudes. My heart had hardened, and I was resolute in my attitude which only hampered any positive movement forward. In my obdurate disposition, I continued to be present, but at arm’s length.

While I recognized my own responsibility in the addled connection with my son (the words of the psalmist, “My sin is ever before me,” come to mind) I had dug myself so deeply in my smug sanctimony, I wasn’t sure how to climb out of the hole I had perpetuated. These thoughts, of course, were on my mind that June day twelve years ago, and Claudia and I had always been present for the births of our grandchildren, so I needed (and wanted) to be there. In my self-assuredness, I felt I needed to be there for my son, his wife and their new child. I was to discover that in reality I needed to be there for myself.

Within seconds of walking into the waiting area with his perfect little son, my own son placed the child into my grandfatherly arms. Looking at his cherubic little face, eyes closed and contentedly sleeping, Claudia asked the question: “And what is his name?” Glancing at her, the baby and then at me, my son said: “His name is Silas. Silas Allen.”

In that moment, hearing those words, my heart stopped and I had no words to say. You see, my middle name is Allen. The gift of God I held in my arms shared my middle and last names, and with the announcement of his name, I felt a shift in my soul, a balm for my cracked, embittered spirit. My perceived issues faded away, and I sensed something new might be on the way.

While Silas was an infant and in his first years of life, I had the blessing of spending nearly every Friday with him while his school-teacher parents worked. This blessed opportunity was interrupted by our move to Virginia nine-and-a-half years ago. I have few regrets about our Virginia years, but I have regretted this more than you can imagine.

The geographical distance of nearly a decade did not serve to rebuild the relationship with my son, and while we were on better terms, it was just easier to hold each other distantly during those years. It was only with Claudia’s death that this son and I have crossed the no-man’s-land of rugged individualism. We have been able to speak with honesty to one another and are discovering a new adult connection that values interdependence. I thank God for the opportunity to reshape this (and other) important relationships in my life now that I am “back home.”

So while home is wherever we are emotionally close to those we love, there is something about the confluence of emotional, spiritual and geographical presence that grounds the heart. With gratitude for the many “homes” I have inhabited over the years, I today feel very blessed to be where I am today.

“Hey, it’s good to be back home again.”