A Beautiful Home
On the 75th anniversary of my parents’ wedding day, I posted something on Facebook about the significance of that day to me. I really didn’t expect a lot of comments about that. I was just thinking about them and wanted to remember that day.
I have a cousin who is quite a bit younger than me. In fact, he is enough younger that he was in high school when I taught at that high school. His father and my mother were siblings. As I remember it, we did not really spend that much time together.
However, there must have been enough time spent that my parents made an impression on him. It was, as you will soon read, a very favorable impression.
His was the first of only two comments about my post. I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing what he posted with you:
“What an awesome tribute to aunt Jenny and uncle Delmar. I have memories of visiting their beautiful home as a child. I was young, but my memories say love & safety” (emphasis mine, jf).
“Beautiful” was not a word I would have used to describe that house when I was growing up. It is not a word I would used to describe it now. When I first read my cousin’s remark, I thought that the years must have clouded his memory.
It took me a second or two, but it occurred to me that my cousin did not use the word “house.” Instead, he used the word “home.”
He may not have intended to say anything significant by using that word. I don’t know. I think that, whatever his intentions were, he expressed something very significant.
We did not have any of the things that many people think to be necessary for a beautiful house. It was not constructed with beautiful brick. In fact, it was constructed with a material that my dad had to “patch” from time to time. We had only one bathroom with only a tub (no shower). The furniture was far from new. The kitchen was not much bigger than one of the many closets found in many houses today. There was no central heat and air. In fact, during all the years I lived there, the “air-conditioning unit” was a window fan.
I think you get the idea. There was not much about that house to make it special.
However, things like love and safety go a long way in making for a special and a beautiful home. I’m glad I got to grow up in an environment like that.
Maybe three words from my cousin’s comment could serve as a challenge to all parents. Your children will, indeed, have memories of how they grew up. Will they remember material things, or will they remember things like love and safety?
Will they remember a house or a home?
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