Going Home

I had a built-in sidekick in the form of my younger brother, Jeff. One of our common ventures was creating hideouts. We built them anywhere we could find a good place. In hedgerows, barn rafters, out of scrap wood in some remote field corner,  in the branches of trees. We once started building one out of mud. We had grand visions of building a whole village of mud houses, but never got beyond the foundation of the first house. It was too much like work.
We made plans in our hide-outs. Dream and Imagination were king and queen. From them, we spied on the unsuspecting world.
In the particular instance I am recalling here, we had built one of these hideouts...somewhere. It must have been fantastic, because I clearly remember the general excitement we had about it....and hitting upon the glorious plan of asking Mother if we could sleep out in it that night. She said yes, and we promptly set to hauling out all the things we'd need. Blankets, pillows, flashlights...we hauled them out load after haphazard load, wild with anticipation.

Evening approached, and somewhere along the way a thought sprouted in my mind: it was dark outside at night. What if I didn't feel as excited about this in the dark as I did right now? What if it seemed more creepy than cozy in there with all the pillows and flashlights and shifting shadows? What if we heard noises? What if Mother would tell us we'd hauled all that stuff out there and we had to face our fears and sleep out there no matter what? What then???

 I didn't know. I had to know.  I had to know if I was going to be stuck out there with no recourse, and nothing but a little brother for protection, in case of emergency.

I crept up beside her and asked her very quietly, "Mother? If we get scared tonight, is it okay if we come in?"

She had been busy with her housework, and we had been so enthusiastically implementing our sleep-out plans! This was certainly an about-turn! She turned to me a bit startled. Then with a bit of a catch in her voice said, "Honey...you can always come home. Never forget that."

Mother has moved several times since I've married and left home, but no matter where she's made her abode, any morning I wake under her roof and the aroma of breakfast is wafting from the kitchen, I'm her girl again and she's my mother. Home is where mother is, that's what.

Yesterday, Mother moved one last time. We came to know this move was relatively imminent and inevitable last fall when she was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. It was incurable, they said.
In these last months I have grieved and grieved again the losses her passing must bring, not the least of which is never being able to go home again.

And I've thought more than once of what she told me there that summer afternoon, and how it is now no longer true. I can never go home again.  No more walking in her door, drawing in the familiar aroma of her house, talking together by the light of her lamps, or waking under her roof with the smell of pancakes floating from the kitchen.
She's gone, leaving a vacuum as big and silent as the night sky.

The tears flow from a heart that feels like a stone within me. Heavy. Hard. No more mother. No more going home. Oh Mother!...Mother!
The future stretches before me sadly devoid of her reliable and steady maternal input.
But suddenly from my puddle, I hear her voice again as gentle and reassuring as it was back then.... "Honey, you can always come home. Never forget that."

Oh yes, Mother! We can! And we will! We'll be leaving here as soon as we can get packed up and on the road. I'm not sure when we'll get there. It might be late; don't wait up. Just leave the door unlocked and the light on, and we'll see you in the morning.