Grief of the Childhood Home Kind
The milk falls into my ebony black tea with a plop and creates the most perfect storm in a teacup I’ve seen in awhile. I’m taken back to mornings spent on the verandah of my childhood home overlooking our beloved avocado tree that holds the secrets of my youth. My Mum is next to me, quietly spreading butter and vegemite on cold toast, offering me some even though she knows I think cold toast is disgusting. When she makes it, I love it because it means intimacy and space with her.
We nestle back into the daybed discussing deep matters in a trivial way, pretending life might stay this sweet forever. Of course, outside these times together, life was hard. But, mostly, with Mum, everything felt safe and fun. Even though she’s stuck in her ways and it was usually me being flexible to fit her, I never minded. It was a pure joy to get those sweet times together permeated by the grace of Jesus.
Here I stand, in this season of being a new mum in a new country with a new community, and I miss my home. Not simply the home I built for myself in Armidale, but the home I came from. Often I dream of walking down the stairs in my childhood home, around the bend and over the slate floor to the kitchen, accented with natural light and greenery. My heart feeling peaceful and at rest in my first home; the home where I played copious amount of soccer barefoot on the toughest driveway; where I went head over handlebars on my bike at 4 and had multiple stitches in my chin; where I passionately lectured my Mum for making me a girl, not a boy; where I learnt to play magical imaginative games, making potions from the garden and building cubby houses. The home where I grew up picking avocados from the highest point of the tree, towering over the valley; where I experienced my first heartbreak and turned to writing; where I met Jesus when I was 3. The home I lived in when my Step Dad left, when multiple friends passed away suddenly, and my Gradpa left this world forever. The home where I felt known, loved, seen, appreciated and joyful. I could go on.
Childhood homes seem to lurk in the deepest parts of our hearts, don’t they? I feel it in my bones. I long for just one more day spent sitting at the kitchen bench drinking tea with my family in the brilliant natural light.
There are many things I’m grieving in this season, and I kid you not, it’s so akin to grief of experiencing death of those close to you. It’s stuck in my veins and my mind, taunting me. My rational side speaks resounding truth to my heart daily, reminding it that this is what I wanted.
We nestle back into the daybed discussing deep matters in a trivial way, pretending life might stay this sweet forever. Of course, outside these times together, life was hard. But, mostly, with Mum, everything felt safe and fun. Even though she’s stuck in her ways and it was usually me being flexible to fit her, I never minded. It was a pure joy to get those sweet times together permeated by the grace of Jesus.
Here I stand, in this season of being a new mum in a new country with a new community, and I miss my home. Not simply the home I built for myself in Armidale, but the home I came from. Often I dream of walking down the stairs in my childhood home, around the bend and over the slate floor to the kitchen, accented with natural light and greenery. My heart feeling peaceful and at rest in my first home; the home where I played copious amount of soccer barefoot on the toughest driveway; where I went head over handlebars on my bike at 4 and had multiple stitches in my chin; where I passionately lectured my Mum for making me a girl, not a boy; where I learnt to play magical imaginative games, making potions from the garden and building cubby houses. The home where I grew up picking avocados from the highest point of the tree, towering over the valley; where I experienced my first heartbreak and turned to writing; where I met Jesus when I was 3. The home I lived in when my Step Dad left, when multiple friends passed away suddenly, and my Gradpa left this world forever. The home where I felt known, loved, seen, appreciated and joyful. I could go on.
Childhood homes seem to lurk in the deepest parts of our hearts, don’t they? I feel it in my bones. I long for just one more day spent sitting at the kitchen bench drinking tea with my family in the brilliant natural light.
There are many things I’m grieving in this season, and I kid you not, it’s so akin to grief of experiencing death of those close to you. It’s stuck in my veins and my mind, taunting me. My rational side speaks resounding truth to my heart daily, reminding it that this is what I wanted.
This is what I still want. But, in my experience, that never means it’s without heartache.
As the leaves start to fall and be swept away, so my heart begins to process the changes in my world. The strange part is that my childhood home has been missing from my life for three long years. I struggled to accept the reality that we’d never go back there to be a family, but it seems to be setting in. Or maybe I just haven’t given myself the space to process it. Either way, I’m convinced that’s it’s pivotal to allow yourself to feel truly what your heart needs to, before pushing it to move forward. Forward is positive, but it’ll never truly be forward until the grief is accepted, experienced & released.
As the leaves start to fall and be swept away, so my heart begins to process the changes in my world. The strange part is that my childhood home has been missing from my life for three long years. I struggled to accept the reality that we’d never go back there to be a family, but it seems to be setting in. Or maybe I just haven’t given myself the space to process it. Either way, I’m convinced that’s it’s pivotal to allow yourself to feel truly what your heart needs to, before pushing it to move forward. Forward is positive, but it’ll never truly be forward until the grief is accepted, experienced & released.
Here’s to allowing ourselves to feel!
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