Tuesday 9 April 2013

H is for Home


I had always felt quite at home with myself, no matter the location.

However, as a wife and mother spending some time alone at university in France, I missed my home for the first time in my life.

I longed for the patter of feet and arguments to wake me up in the morning and even the constant enquiries as to where such or such an object was to be found would have been welcome.

Although distracted by friends and studies, I lacked my reason for being.  I had not yet built up common traditions with my new community.  None of us conversed in our mother tongue, so perhaps we were frustrated with our inability to express our feelings meaningfully.  Our only insight into each other’s lives and homes was by hearsay and imagination; no shared history.

Perhaps, given longer, we would have formed stronger bonds, celebrated milestones or experienced common loss.

I realise that I felt no nostalgia for the material goods and trappings of my house.   It was the absence of the essence of home which, to me, is family, friends and our way of life.  Home is where you are given unconditional love, where there is the security of a support network developed over time; your comfort zone.

 

My father's family; he was one of 11!  My mother was one of 5 and I was one of 4 giving us an enormous family.
 

8 comments:

  1. Lovely homey H-Day post.
    Stopping by from the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge FB page.

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  2. Wow! That is a big family. I can see why you would miss it, especially with language barriers.

    I found your site. You posted on my blog from the A to Z.

    Sunni

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  3. Home is such a wonderful place. And much more than a place where I keep my stuff.

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  4. Home is where the heart is. Lovely family photo!

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  5. I would love to leave in a different country. What an experience that most have been. Good and bad, I'm sure.

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  6. Amazing photograph. I've never been away from home like that, ever. I even went to our local University after my children started school. You were very brave.

    Rosalind Adam is Writing in the Rain

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  7. Home really is where the heart is! I'm at university now, fortunately I don't have the problem of language barriers but I still get homesick from time to time.

    I always thought I had a big family, but wow! To be one of 11!

    x

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  8. Absolutely, home is where the heart is. Makes me tingle when I think of home. Home to me, is when he is around and it's warm and the house has a nice feel to it.

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