What does home mean to you?
The first home I can remember was in Mississippi. There was a back yard covered in purple flowers. There was a big screen porch where we played, safe from mosquitoes. There was a long flight of stairs… a front door with leaded glass…a radiator that whined when the heat was on. I can remember all these things, but most of all, I remember how safe I felt there.
When we moved to Georgia, we built a house…sturdy and brick, nestled between two hills on the farm. My people still live in that house and it still is home. If I’m having a hard day, all I have to do is go in that back door and see the hall tree, covered in coats. All I have to do is hear mama’s voice calling out in welcome and I feel safe and sound. My grandmother’s house was like that- just the smell of it made me feel a world away from troubles. I have a button box of hers that I can still open and catch a whiff of that home.
I have my own home now. I know how it looks when the morning sun is spilling over the back porch. I know how it feels in the cool of the evening when chill of night has made us draw the curtains closed. I know when I drive home at the end of a hard day, I’ll be greeted by Fat Cookie and Princess Pickle and they’ll escort me to find Johnny Jackson, wherever he may be.
I looked up the word “home” on Wikipedia, the online dictionary. According to them, home is “a place of residence, or refuge and comfort. Usually a place in which an individual or family can rest…” Then the article talks about the psychological aspect of home… “Since it can be said that humans are generally creatures of habit, the state of a person’s home has been known to psychologically influence their behavior, emotions, and overall mental health.”
That makes me wonder. What happens to people who don’t have a sanctuary … people living under bridges…families who don’t have a place to live or even wash their hands?
A decade ago I decided to do something completely different and volunteer at the West Georgia Habitat for Humanity house build. After lots of encouraging from a friend in my church choir (you know who you are) I finally decided to put my hammer to good use.
Before hand, I logged onto their website…www.westgahabitat.org. It said, “Habitat For Humanity is a nonprofit organization, working to provide decent, affordable housing to community members in need in Carroll and Haralson County. Houses are sold at no profit, with no interest to partner families who themselves contribute hundreds of hours of sweat equity labor. Through tax-deductible donations of money and materials and through volunteer labor, West Georgia Habitat strives to build 2-3 houses per year.”
Saturday rolled around and I showed up, hammer in hand. They fed us a good breakfast. A preacher stood up and said a prayer, asking God to bless our efforts. Jerry Driver stood and thanked us all for showing up. Then it was time to work.
It was a little hard at first to find a job, so I picked up trash. But my choir friend nabbed me and we tucked in with one of the team leaders (who also happened to be the man that I would one day marry). Soon we were hard at work. We pulled nails out of boards, put in insulation and installed windows. I even ended up on the roof “helping” the roofers. I climbed up the ladder and the roofing crew looked at me like I was a woman boarding a sailing ship. I worked for a good hour (so as not to embarrass myself by giving up too quickly) and finally I got my fill of kneeling down at extreme altitudes to drive nails. I descended the ladder and left the job to the pros.
I’m not sure how many people were there. Maybe 30. The Boy Scouts fed us good lunch and we worked hard all day. It was lots of fun. I met the woman who would own the house. Her children were there, as well as her father. They were all working hard toward the goal of owning that house. I could see her eyes shining with pride as the house grew up from the ground. A foundation. Stud walls. A roof. Siding. Sheetrock. By the time we left for the day, a house stood where none had been before.
At one point, I was working alongside a man who used to own a flooring company, but the economy pretty much put him out of business. He lost his house and was living in his sister’s basement, looking for a job. And yet…he was here, swinging a hammer, helping another family get into their own home.
They say, “Home is where the heart is.” And with thirty plus hearts working together to make a family’s dream come true, I’d have to agree.