Homeleaving

A few short weeks ago, we celebrated a Homecoming for two of my children. It's an amazing feeling having them come home. Home. You long for it. You count down the days until they make it back. Home. It has so many connotations. The home you grew up in, the home you create. The place you are born, the place you live. We, my two high school sons and I, usually spend almost 12 hours each day gone from our house for various reasons. Coming home is the best. As soon as I pull in the driveway I feel a sense of enormous relief. We made it. I set down my bag, set down my burdens, and sit down. A cup of tea, a glass of wine and all is well with the world again. That feeling of unwinding and letting go. It is the best. It would be that way for the college-age kids too. Just as I pull into the driveway every night so relieved, so it would be for them, exponentially so, when they pulled in to our house after months away.

Just before the kids came home, I was at church, another home for me. I know many people have varied feelings about faith and religion and church these days, but for me, it is a sanctuary. I love the familiarity of the rituals and the prayers that bring me home. It is a respite from the weary world. We are also lucky enough to have a priest who, I feel, gets it. He used to work in a college and many of his homilies are about young people. So his homily a few weeks ago hit home. He said our number one job as parents this Christmas was to heal our kids coming home from college. I took that to heart. I know something about the burdens my own kids had this semester in school, and I know they don't share everything with me. Being away from home and dealing with issues that are beyond what we would expect, or at least what I saw in college, is tough stuff. You start to drift and it is hard to come up for air. When Annie started at school in Boston, there had just been a very public death of a young person from drug abuse, and then more recently, there was a death of a beloved alum at her school who started the Ice Bucket Challenge. These are heavy things, things that weigh us down, leave us wondering about sadness in the world, and leave us wanting for "Home." And so I knew that my pastor's challenge to "Heal" was exactly what I would work to do as the kids came home.

What exactly that would look like, I didn't know. Homecooked meals. No pressure. Time to sit and time to sleep. No questions asked. A schedule-free day. No judgment. How do you catch your breath again? How do you heal from heartache and heartbreak? How do you heal from failures and let downs? How do you heal from early death and suicide? How do you heal from late nights and early mornings? From no sleep and no exercise and no real food and no mom nagging you to take your vitamins? But as soon as I saw my son's face when we picked him up and when the dog ran to greet him, I knew the process had begun. It is easy to heal at Home. It is easy to heal when you know someone is waiting for you to come home. It is easy to heal when your family is gathered around the table for dinner. We just love them. We healed when we went to family gatherings and had birthday parties. We healed when we sat around watching television. We healed when we laughed about silly memes. He healed when he ate donuts. Even when he laid in his bed all morning, he healed. And we all felt better. When Annie took the car and saw her friends and invited them to our house, everyone healed. When we celebrated with extended family and with neighbors, everyone healed. When they did their laundry and did their chores and did things they might not have wanted to at first, like hanging the Christmas lights, they healed. When Jay went to a local bar and saw his old friends from elementary school, shaking hands in that funny-elbow-bumping way they do, he healed. There were no expectations, no demands. Just appreciation for him. When neighbors said hello and shook his hand, he healed. It is miraculous what Home can do for our souls, our weary souls. Because Home is full of Love.

Jay won't be home again until May. Annie will be home at the end of February. But I know they are okay. They healed while they were here. I know this because when Jay saw a plastic bag laying on the table that read, Notre Dame Bookstore, and he said, "I can't wait to go back," he had healed. See that's the thing about healing at home: it gets you ready to face the world again. And to go back and work and work really hard and face failure and challenge and heartaches. That is the magic of Home.

I hope that every young person who is in pain right now can feel healed. I hope they find a way Home. I hope that people who feel hurt by others or by the church or by our society can find a Home that heals them. I hope our country can heal too. I hope that in this new decade our country can make a comeback to the Home we are meant to be. Where we aren't worried to death about our young people. That suicide and drugs don't take so many, many young lives. I hope we find a way to heal them. To heal each other.

And so today was the Homeleaving. I wasn't ready. I am still crying. Annie was crying the last time she looked at me. It is so hard to leave Home. But she texted us to say she had landed safely. And so, in a way, she has gone Home. She is at a school she loves. Jay also made it back safely. He has friends waiting for him and a school he loves. It is its own sort of Homecoming. And while it will be challenging and tough, it will also help them grow and then they will heal. I guess it's like working your muscles. You stretch them as far as they can go and then, in healing, they become stronger. That happens to hearts too. And, I suppose, souls. They will be hurt, they will heal, and they will go on. Homecoming and Home-leaving and Healing in between. And lots of love.