Home

Home is just something you do, we always moved so I made it. Of course you have your birth family but soon you meet another, such as a potential spouse. In my case parental supervision was entailed. After being asked by two others, I took the hand of my husband on our first date and he never let me go. We’ll be married 14 years very soon.

He is home. My father and brother are home, when I see them. My in-laws are home whenever we want, emotionally and physically. After 15 years of us together they even want our dog to come visit!

We always try to have a view or something, even soft mats to keep me in the kitchen, cooking. That makes a home. So do people who care for us, especially when we can return the good deed.

Years ago when I met my husband’s brother, he wasn’t interested in getting to know me. It took a while but now he calls me “sis.” That’s family. That is home.

When I was being interviewed as a potential wife by Nanny, I was asked to promise that my potential husband would take a job for 40 years and get a gold watch at the end. I said, no, he’s in software. There are no gold watches or long-term deals. I cannot promise you this. She made me an honorary grand-daughter anyway. That is home.

I told Nanny that I could take care of him. She said he was too skinny, and last week she told me he’s put on too much weight! In the middle she always told me, as she agreed to be my Nanny too as I never knew my own, that she knew her grandson was doing well because he was fed well by his wife. That would be me. That’s family, and a home I look to seeing very soon as Nanny hosts Thanksgiving for at least 50 guests.

When I drive long distances with the dog she sleeps, unless there’s an off-ramp or stop sign. At Thanksgiving, when I drive her over fifteen hundred miles, when we turn on to the five mile road to the family ranch, she knows it’s home. Her head pops up and she knows where she goes every year, nearly all of her many years. She stands on J’s sofa and watches for him to come back from feeding cattle. He ignores her, so she loves him even more.

M loves to have Zoe around because we have a three-day cooking extravaganza, and Zoe eats crumbs off the floor. Our parents and dog are home.

Someone is leaving here, a guy who has helped us over the years. He will be missed. One day he ate a piece of corn custard I made for someone else. There was he!! to pay. Since then I made it for him. He is leaving us and I’m making him a final farewell dish. Why? When I told my husband he was leaving he said, “well, you’ll have to cook him something.”

That’s home. Dee