Last night, while taking the dog out for the last time of the day, I walked across the cul-du-sac and turned looking west. Clouds darkened the sky after the sun hours earlier set.
I was alone, looking at our home, and I thought, for me, it's the safest place I know.
It's really just a building, three floors, four bedrooms, three and a half baths on a third of an acre of land.
And we've lived there for sixteen years.
There's a reason there's two words for the structure or location where we live. A building is a house. It has a foundation, walls, doors, windows, and all the material things that make it what it is.
The other word is home. A home can be a house, apartment, RV, boat, basically anywhere people gather to support each other, to help each other, to love each other. Thankfully, I can say all the years we've live here it's been our home. And all the years I've lived other places, I've been fortunate enough to have a home.
Our living at this particular address is temporary, as are all material things. When we no longer live in the building, someone else will and they'll call it their house--hopefully, they'll also call it their home. I wonder if whoever ends up here will, on a slightly overcast summer evening, meander across the street and look back on the cabin-framed structure. I hope so, and I hope if they do, they'll feel the same thing I felt last night...a safe place in a crazy world.
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