I have spent nearly all of my adult life far from the places I grew up. In truth, I moved quite a bit as a child, subject to forces beyond my control. I lived in Oregon, where I was born, for a number of those seasons during my formative years. It is a place that, for me, still harbors many wonderful memories. This past weekend, I returned to Oregon not so much for a solemn goodbye as for a celebration of life.
We did not gather at a funeral parlor, or among the headstones. We did not dress in black and mourn. We gathered in a barn, among the salt of the earth--hearty people, honest people, loving people--and shared stories about a life well lived. There were tears, many, but there was much laughter. Afterwards, those closest, family and friends, reconvened at a cabin in the woods--a storied place where young men grew up, learned to tell tall tales, and engaged in old-fashioned mischief.
At some point in the evening, in front of a raging fire and under a star-filled sky, my nephew and I turned our thoughts to the question of home. He, like me, and my own sons, chose a path that leads him far afield, away from family and dear friends, to chase his future. In so many ways, he is me nearly a quarter century ago, although I suspect him a much wiser man than I was at his same age.
Home, for some, is so obvious--a place where we are born, make a life, raise children, grow old, leave a legacy. For others, however, it is a curious concept--warm, yet distant. It is a place that resides between memory and fantasy, deep in our sinews, out of reach. For decades, for me, home has been a concept inseparable from the love of my life. Where she is, where my children are, that's home. I have emotionally insulated myself against the callings of a distant place or time for fear that the pain would be too much to bear.
Then again, home is a calling. I knew it the moment I got off the plane in Oregon Thursday night. The first real stirrings came when I rolled down the rental car window, and took in the fir-infused, brisk evening air. The air is always different in the places we call home, whether thick with magnolia or cedar or hibiscus, dry or humid, cool or tepid. Soon came the turn off from the freeway down a too familiar county road winding along a favorite river. Just there, in the distance, an old bay bridge, a town less subject to this modern age, a driveway to family and friends and familiar things. Home was in that barn. It was there in that cabin. No matter how far I travel, there will ever be only one place that is my home.
As my nephew and I continued our conversation, another truth emerged. Home was so very special to us because we knew what it was to see it fade in our rear view mirror, knew how distant a familiar voice could sound on a long distance call. It's easy to take for granted one's life, to assume that we can always go home. Sometimes we can't. Other times, the home we return to is a shell of its former self, missing the people that made it home in the first place.
So here's to never taking home for granted, and to teaching our children the same. Here's to never taking for granted all of the lives that love us and shape us. Here's to never taking for granted the air, and roads, and sunrises, and warm embraces that come together to make a home, and to make us who we are everyday in the ways that matter most. Wherever home is, a mile or an ocean away, get there soon, and stay as long as you can.
See you around campus.
We did not gather at a funeral parlor, or among the headstones. We did not dress in black and mourn. We gathered in a barn, among the salt of the earth--hearty people, honest people, loving people--and shared stories about a life well lived. There were tears, many, but there was much laughter. Afterwards, those closest, family and friends, reconvened at a cabin in the woods--a storied place where young men grew up, learned to tell tall tales, and engaged in old-fashioned mischief.
At some point in the evening, in front of a raging fire and under a star-filled sky, my nephew and I turned our thoughts to the question of home. He, like me, and my own sons, chose a path that leads him far afield, away from family and dear friends, to chase his future. In so many ways, he is me nearly a quarter century ago, although I suspect him a much wiser man than I was at his same age.
Home, for some, is so obvious--a place where we are born, make a life, raise children, grow old, leave a legacy. For others, however, it is a curious concept--warm, yet distant. It is a place that resides between memory and fantasy, deep in our sinews, out of reach. For decades, for me, home has been a concept inseparable from the love of my life. Where she is, where my children are, that's home. I have emotionally insulated myself against the callings of a distant place or time for fear that the pain would be too much to bear.
Then again, home is a calling. I knew it the moment I got off the plane in Oregon Thursday night. The first real stirrings came when I rolled down the rental car window, and took in the fir-infused, brisk evening air. The air is always different in the places we call home, whether thick with magnolia or cedar or hibiscus, dry or humid, cool or tepid. Soon came the turn off from the freeway down a too familiar county road winding along a favorite river. Just there, in the distance, an old bay bridge, a town less subject to this modern age, a driveway to family and friends and familiar things. Home was in that barn. It was there in that cabin. No matter how far I travel, there will ever be only one place that is my home.
As my nephew and I continued our conversation, another truth emerged. Home was so very special to us because we knew what it was to see it fade in our rear view mirror, knew how distant a familiar voice could sound on a long distance call. It's easy to take for granted one's life, to assume that we can always go home. Sometimes we can't. Other times, the home we return to is a shell of its former self, missing the people that made it home in the first place.
So here's to never taking home for granted, and to teaching our children the same. Here's to never taking for granted all of the lives that love us and shape us. Here's to never taking for granted the air, and roads, and sunrises, and warm embraces that come together to make a home, and to make us who we are everyday in the ways that matter most. Wherever home is, a mile or an ocean away, get there soon, and stay as long as you can.
See you around campus.