Goin' home.. I'm still goin' home

I sat in daddy’s chair at the kitchen table where everything is still the same and utterly different. The counted cross stitch framed in an embroidery hoop, a Christmas present from Aunt Peg, hangs on the wall over the table as it has for years. The stove, thirty years old and still working, is the same one my sister and I used to can tomatoes on summer visits to put up vegetables from daddy’s garden. Most of the little gold flecks are worn off the formica counter tops, polished off by years of cleaning. The empty space is full and overflowing with people and memories invisible to everyone else but clear as day to mama and me.
The truck is loaded with boxes filled with canned food, clothes, household goods, flowers to transplant, a visible symbol that mama will no longer be able to stay by herself in her home. As we walk out the door to leave for North Carolina she says, “If I ever get back, I want to bring the white rose, the first one I planted when we moved here.” If I ever get back...
We stop in Atlanta to visit our friend Pitts Hughes, now ninety four and one half by her reckoning. A year has passed since she made the move to an assisted living home and we had not seen her new place. Pitts moves around in a wheelchair now but the movement of her mind and spirit is unhampered as always. Mother God is still trying to order the universe and most of the time, it co-operates. I watch as we move through the halls, Pitts calling each helper by name and introducing us to them. They touch her, pat her shoulder and share a laugh as we make our grand procession to the parlor. Mama and Pitts talk about the process of leaving home and the adjustments required. Pitts moved often during her professional years so her home has always been with people not places.
I wake in the night and lie quietly pondering, wondering how I will do when my time comes to leave home. Mama and Pitts, forced by age and health to leave their homes, are my teachers. Pitts is surrounded by friends and is still in the same neighborhood where she lived. Mama has moved to another state to be with family. Each has lost and gained in their moves... lost independence and gained a new home. Home is in their hearts, their memories.
All our lives we go home from one house to another, farm, apartment, suburbs, city. And some day, some still, quiet day, we will all go home, home to our Beginning and our End, a Home that waits where love never ends and our moving days are over. Dear One, give me traveling mercies, I pray for the trip home and keep us all in the hollow of your hand. Amen.

Going home, going home
I’m jus' going home
Quiet like, some still day
I’m jus' going home

Nothing lost, all is gain
No more fret nor pain
No more stumbling on the way
No more longing for the day
Going to roam no more

Morning star lights the way
Restless dream all done
Shadows gone, break of day
Real life yes begun