What is Your Definition of Home?

My beautiful mother, Maureen.

My Home

What is Your Definition of Home I think I was eleven years old. I was out in my family’s garage one day, and I saw a beautiful framed photo of a white baby seal. It may sound weird, but it really was a gorgeous white photo and it had a nice thick, black matte and frame. It was a large print (20X24) and I started to imagine how it would look in our home. I came into the house determined to get my mom to replace the broken glass and put it on our wall near our entryway. My mom brushed me off, but soon she realized that I was not going to be put off. She agreed to take it to a glass shop.

Finally the day arrived to pick it up. I was WAY more excited than my mom about putting it up. I was feeling very proud about how it would look. It was pretty heavy but after hammering in the nail it was time to hang it and then admire. I held the heavy frame in my hands and gently hung the mounting hardware on the nail. I let go to take a look and adjust and that is when it happened.

The brand-new, just-picked-up-from-the-glass-shop frame, fell to the ground and the newly installed glass shattered. I was devastated and extremely sorry for my hurried, prideful and stupid mistake. But because my mom is amazing, patient and loves me, she didn’t make me feel worse than I already did. I knew that my mom had spent money on the glass, money she likely didn’t have budgeted, but because she had a stubborn, design-loving daughter, she had given in. Although it really was a kind of tragedy to never hang that beautiful print, the real beauty was in the kindness, mercy and safety my mother offered me in that moment.

It was not expensive art or high-end furnishings that made me feel like I was home, it was my mother’s love. I am so grateful that I have my mother who is grounded and real. She reminds me, without having to say it, that things are just that, things. Everything I own could be burned or stolen, but if I have my family, I have a home, a place of comfort, a heaven on Earth.

I hope that your home is filled with your favorite things, but more importantly filled with love for the people that dance, pray, eat and sleep there.

Cheers to happy homes!

Lucy