Grandpa's Wisdom

A man once said, "Home, in one form or another, is the great object of life". There is wisdom in that. As we grow into adulthood we "leave the nest", as it were, to find our niche in the world. But, never in our quest for the freedom and independence that we seek do we intend to leave "home". Indeed, we move from one home, that one in which we grew up, which developed and nurtured our character, which taught us about who we are, and provided love and comfort; to start another home of our own. The desire to become free and independent did not remove from us, nor alter our pursuit of the "great object of life", to have a place to settle into a place we could call our own. This quest for "Home" is not to leave behind, nor to abandon that from which we came. We still have a tether to that place, its memories, its traditions, indeed the very people within that home, that shared and taught important things to us. Rather our goal, the object of our pursuit, is to replicate all the good that inhabited that place, and to build upon that good with our own ideas and standards. We take the traditions, teachings and comforts of the past habitation and blend them into our own recipe for "home". In doing so, we forsake that which was unpleasant for us there, or what we did not agree with there, or which did not suit our fancy there, and generate our own imprint, our own definition of place, of "home". It then becomes "our home". It becomes the place where the identity of our character and our traditions are there for others to see, where they flourish. This imprint includes more than just the "things" we bring into the new home. The things make a contribution to what we are creating, to be sure. Things, too, are a part of the definition of who we are. We might be eclectic or specifically defined in our choice of decor. These are the elements of what contributes to a house being a home. But that to which I refer is measured by the intangibles. The comfort created. The charm. The personal identity that says to every visitor, "This is where I live". These elements are what really make a house a home. These elements not only define the home, they define you. Every visitor will come to know you by what they experience in your home. Will what you create be an invitation for someone to want to return again and again? Or, will their first impression be their last impression? We do not think much of our home as we abide there from day to day. But when we strike out to create a home we begin to put ourselves into it, to reveal ourselves to the creation, and to those who will soon visit. We and the home we create will be the invitation, the event, the tradition and the memory.

Grandson Justin has recently embarked on this journey. May he reach back into the recesses of his past home experiences to pull the best of them as he unleashes his creativity into the development of his first, very own dream home. I know we'll know Justin when we visit his home.