Losing home

I am single. I live on my own. I rent.

I have the most beautiful, blessed existence. I adore my family, most especially my nieces and nephews who have all grown up to be remarkable young men and women. I have the most amazing circle of friends a girl could ever ask for. I live in a wonderful community and have a fantastic job in a workplace I love with colleagues I consider friends.

And yet, 4 days after I turned 45, I was suddenly thrown into a circumstance where I felt like a child again. You see, my Mum, my beautiful protector, my kind and hilarious friend, my elderly Mum who more often than not drove me completely crazy, passed away. I don’t think this reality has actually hit me yet, but what has smacked me in the face like a sledgehammer is the fact that I have just lost home.

I am not homeless, but I am struggling with my new understanding of home. For what is home? Is it the town you grew up in? Is it where your family is? The abode you currently live in? Maybe it is all of these things and maybe it is none.

For me, my mum was home. I would ‘go home’ to see mum. ‘Going home’ involved staying at mum’s house. We would make up the guest bed together (because making a bed with two people is so much easier!) and she would make sure I was all looked after. Towels were put out, electric blanket was turned on an hour before bed during winter months. We would have breakfast together; she would always wait for me to get out of bed, even if I slept in a few hours later than her. She would be interested in my latest art project and ask me to show her photos of what I was working on. She would crochet while I lounged about doing not much, the kind of ‘not much’ you can only do in the comfort of your home.

I would show her photos on Facebook; the latest pics of my friends kids, a family wedding and relatives in Holland. I would post photos of her on Facebook: mind you, she always had to fix her hair before taking the photo, approve the photo before posting, and I was absolutely obliged to tell her who had liked the photo and to read her any comments. She loved it.

And now she is gone. And so is my whole concept of home.

I am working hard at rebuilding home. Now home is Glenbrook, the community in which I live. A place where I have wonderful friends; one who I have known for more than 30 years and a good many more who I have known a little less than that. A place where I feel safe. A place which feels a little more familiar every day; where the baristas at my local coffee shop know my order and bins go out on a Sunday night.

But home is also Wagga, where I grew up and where some of my family live, and some of my closest friends in the world live too. Wagga is the place about which I know the old stories, the ‘remember when’s’ and there is no underestimating the absolute strength of memories and stories to bind us to a place.

What home is no longer, is Mum. And that recognition feels like someone just reached into my chest and crushed my windpipe. I find it hard to breathe if I think about it too much, this new normal. And it hurts like hell. I am a little lost, well more than a little if I am honest and the disorientation caused by me trying to readjust is dizzying. I know the waters will calm, I know I will find my way, but for the moment what I would really like is for someone to help me make my bed and wait for me for breakfast. That’s home.