It’s Mama….
D is for Dwelling
According to Miriam Webster, “a dwelling is a shelter, secure place, place where people reside and live and love”….okay, I added the love part, but you get the drift.
I really cannot remember a time in my life where I did not associate “home” “dwelling” or “shelter” with my own Mama. When I went to school and left her as a nursery school student, I wanted to go home because that was where my Mama was. When I went off to a new school in Meade County, I could not wait to get home each day because Mama was there. Even when I was in college, it never really felt like home like our farm in Flaherty, Kentucky did.
I remember moving into my first apartment and then first house and still feeling like something was missing…now, I look back and realize it was a lot of things which truly make a house a home, but one especially poignant missing ingredient was the presence of my Mama.
I remember bringing you, Madison, from the hospital on April 11, 1990 and feeling a physical sense of warmth as we brought you into our home at 3257 Hunting Hills Drive. I laid on the couch with you in my arms feeling tender and emotional as I stared at your sweet, baby face. You were less than 48 hours old, still had that newborn-fresh-from-the-womb smell. And it was then that everything changed. I was the Mama, and this was our home. And it was all things sweet, and beautiful, and magical.
We lived there in that dwelling until you were 21 months old, having sold our home on Christmas day and moved out prior to the end of January. We temporarily moved in an apartment with some friends, but that home-like feeling moved with us. We lived, all squeezed together, with Doug and Melissa Crowdus and their baby daughter, Devin; we shared their home until they moved out and gave us the apartment while we looked for a new dwelling in which to reside.
We stayed there until July I believe at which time; your dad found our next home at 1020 Balsam Drive. It was a fixer-upper extraordinaire! Orange shag carpet, ugly maple cabinets, the washer/dryer in the kitchen. It was not the place I chose nor would have chosen to live next, but I went because that is what I was convinced to do. Placing my trust in God, I put my heart into making it our family home and it eventually did become that.
While there, the decision was made for me to work part time so I could stay with you and keep track of your PKU as well as “try to make another baby”. We lost our baby Joseph while living in that home. You and I grew a garden of vegetables and herbs with the help of our neighbor, we grew peonies, met your best friend who was from a missionary family on sabbatical in the states. You started kindergarten at Garden Springs and learned to ride a bike there.
The dwelling of the house would have stayed just that if not for the love and work and elbow grease we put into it. While your dad was at work, I refinished the stairs and the front door, painted bedrooms, knocked out walls with Grammy and Poppy who also helped me learn to lay wallpaper in French Country style.
I made a best friend through Helen McFadden and was forever changed by her love and friendship.
We became pregnant with your brothers after a lengthy time and lot of effort trying. It was while living in this dwelling of a home that we learned there would be “two brothers” just like you said there would be! It was magical!
My favorite season in raising you children was at this dwelling of a home…it was the happiest ten years of my motherhood and I loved every single moment…even the hard ones…because I had the three of you, and that made all the difference.
“Me and the three” 
is what Helen, Phil, Dot, and Elmer called us. We did everything together…we had no money, so we walked almost everywhere…school, Kroger, Baskin and Robins. We walked to the duck pond and the doctor and even the bank! I pulled your brothers so long in the wagon that even Elmer said they had grown too big and needed a bike.
Then, like a treasured vacation that you must leave, it was decided that we should move to Scott County. It took three years for your Dad to convince me to move. Really, he finally just said we were going…so, I went. I told him then that I felt something bad would happen if we moved there…and it did. Many bad things did. I regret that I did not lean harder into my faith and family during that season seeking out God’s will together rather than abiding by the will of another. I regret not letting truth come to light and staying under the umbrella of our church family. But move we did on July 2, 2002.
115 Valhalla never really felt like a home…not even the dwelling of a home. It was not for the lack of effort…I went to work, so we had more money. We lived in a nice neighborhood…it even had a golf course and a pool. We had great neighbors in the Greens and the Zimmerman’s. But it never did really feel like home and it was in this place where a lot of sorrow happened.
It was here that I realized that no matter how hard you try, it takes two to make a marriage work, that the façade of a white picket fence life is a hollow shell of a place, and that hidden secrets will eventually come out and that what should be a home is just a dwelling.
It was here that I realized you three were my home and I had to be the heart for all of us.
So, we left….
And we moved to 112 Gatewood…where we healed our broken places and found joy, and laughter, and peace. I will hold dear bringing each one of you by yourself to “meet” 112 Gatewood and hearing the first genuine excitement I had heard from you in many years. But I think it was you, Madison, who shared, “Mama, can we buy this house? I just know love lives here” and that is why we named it “love lives here and have that over the door” to this day.
The four of us moved in on March 28, 2011 and that is when I realized that my goal would be to follow in my own Mama’s footsteps and strive to be the heart of our home once again.
Coming home at noon from work and hearing your kids’ laughter in the pool on a hot, summer day, listening to you blaring your music from your bedrooms, seeing you in the first real beds of your own you had ever had in your entire lives, feeling the peace that comes from happy children is something I will never forget.
There were hard moments as we adjusted from being five to four….and, it was not nor is it today, a perfect journey, but I treasure our moments at 112 Gatewood….Love Lives Here.
And, it has made me realize that any place can be a dwelling…but it is the love inside which makes a home a home.
But that is not all I learned….
I learned that as much as I love my own Mama, some day she will go be with Jesus
And that as much as I love you, some day, I will go be with Jesus
And that even as you find your way in this world, some day each of you will go home…
And it is my deepest wish that it is to Heaven….
For, just like the love of my mother
And, just like the love I have for you as your mother….
It is the love you have for God that is where true home is…
This world is just a dwelling….where God hopes and prays you will find Him….
And, the searching may not always be easy, just like our lives have not always been easy
But it will matter….
And, when you find your home in Christ, you don’t place all your hopes and dreams on the love of your mother, or the love of another…but rather,
You place your foundation…your heart…your hope
In the One who truly can be
Your Home….the trues dwelling where God and good and love forever resides…..
ILYAOYMC,
Mama
Isaiah 32:18 – My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.
