Dear Reader Column 07-26-10

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Dear Reader,

My husband and I are on vacation this week with three of our grandchildren: Seth and Bailey, who flew-in from Wisconsin (13 and 15 years old) and Paul (3-1/2 years old) who lives 15 minutes away from us here in Sarasota. Today we're driving to Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, an African lodge-style resort amidst a 43-acre wildlife preserve. You can sit outside on your balcony and almost touch a giraffe. Swimming, movies on the beach, tickets to Blue Man, and two connecting rooms--grandchildren in one and grandparents in the other--the secret to everyone having a delightful, restful, vacation.

To make it a real vacation for this daily columnist, some author friends of mine have graciously offered to fill-in while I'm on hiatus. Today's Dear Reader column is written by Deborah Raney who is hard at work on her 20th novel! (I can't imagine. I'm struggling starting to write my second.)

Deborah reads at the book clubs with us. What an honor to have her join us today. Take it away, Deborah...

Five years ago, my family moved to a new home. It's a nicer, bigger house than I ever dared to dream of owning. Because, you see, I chose to spend the first twenty years of my adult life as a stay-at-home mom. That meant many sacrifices, most of them financial.

I've never had one regret about those years spent living in a small rental. I found it a fun challenge to make it a cozy home for my husband and our children. But I'll tell you the truth: four kids in a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath duplex with a shared yard wasn't always a picnic.

As the kids went off to college, we were able to spread out a little, and eventually our little duplex started feeling quite adequate. Until our kids started bringing friends home. One friend was extra special and one day our daughter married him. Suddenly that duplex felt like a shoebox when everybody was home.

Five years later, with a new daughter-in-law, two grandbabies and another on the way, we feel extra blessed to have this house. Most of the possessions we treasured moved with us from the rental. But one thing we couldn't bring: the wall where we measured our children's growth. All four of our kids were basketball players, so height was a thing to be prized and recorded often by their coach dad.

That narrow wall showed clearly the date when our oldest son shot past Mom's five-foot-eight mark, and then Dad's five-foot-ten. Our wall bragged about the summer our youngest son grew three inches. There were hashmarks three feet from the floor where the tip-top of our tagalong baby's head reached--marks lovingly recorded by her proud big sister. There were marks near the floor for our cat, Frosty. (Do you measure a cat from foot to shoulder, or foot to head?) All those rough pencil lines told a happy story. But stories are history, and they can't always be brought with us to the future. Not tangibly anyway.

All the kids came home one weekend shortly after we moved. Our oldest son flew in from Seattle. His brother drove from Iowa, and his sister (carrying our first grandbaby-to-be) and her husband made the long drive from Missouri. It was the first time our older kids had seen the new place and we had fun showing it off.

I relished sitting in church with my family that Sunday. We took up an entire row! That afternoon, one-by-one, they all left to travel back to the homes they've established. I was sad to see them go, but happy they've each made a good life and have their own special homes and loved ones to go to.

I've learned that it's not walls or windows or heirlooms that make a home. It's the people who live within...and those who come back "home" for a visit. It doesn't matter if we're together in a cardboard box or mansion on a hill, as long as we're together.

Now when I wake up each morning, our house seems more like home because the people I cherish have graced it with new memories. God willing, there are plenty more to come.

Deborah Raney
You can email Deborah at: debraney@mac.com
Visit Deb on the Web at www.deborahraney.com

Almost Forever, first in her new Hanover Falls Novels series, released in May. Deb and her husband, Ken Raney, enjoy small-town life in Kansas where she starts her mornings reading DearReader. They are new empty nesters with four grown children and two precious grandsons, who all live much too far away.

** If you haven't entered this year's Write a Dear Reader Contest, there's still time. 15 days and counting. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/writedr

AUTHORBUZZ: New authors, old favorites--all wonderful books you can win: Debbie Macomber, Orchard Valley Brides; Dori Ostermiller, Outside the Ordinary World; Maria Stewart, Home Again; Kathryn Meyer Griffith, Before the End: A Time of Demons, and John Jodzio, If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home. Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

* This month's Penguin Classics book is A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. To start reading and enter for your chance to win a Penguin totebag go to: http://tinyurl.com/July10Classics

 

Comments

[Richard Mabry]

Deb, Well-said. There's such a difference between a house and a home, and you've nailed it. Thanks.

[Deborah Raney]

Thanks, Richard! So glad I've always lived in a home. : )