Home

Home  /hōm/ noun

1. the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

I lived in six different places growing up.  My family would relocate because of my Dad’s work.  As a result the word “home” doesn’t represent a specific wooden or brick building filled with artifacts and memories of my growing up.  Instead, home to me is simply the place where my family is at.

This past March my Dad passed away from a long illness.  We had talked about burying him in the town my parent’s currently resided in.  Even though my folks had lived there for 30 years the connections and ties to the town are few.  It is possible that my Mom and youngest sister, who lived with my parents, will eventually move from town to places undecided.  Burying Dad there, just didn’t seem right.

For years we’ve known that there was an extra plot at the cemetery where my Grandparents and Great-Grandparents are buried.  Decades ago my Great-Grandfather, “Doc Bebe”, had purchased a family plot at the local cemetery. I never knew my Great-Grandfather as he died while my mother was quite young herself, but I had heard many stories about him and I had already been a beneficiary of his foresight and generosity. Doc was a general practitioner of medicine in this small town in Iowa. He delivered babies, saved lives and even helped those less fortunate through the Great Depression. He and his wife built a lovely home there, in which my own grandparents moved into later in life. I have so many memories of the house and a connection to the town.

My Grandma, my great-grandparent’s only child, married my Grandpa who she met at the hospital where she was a nurse and he the patient.  For reasons I won’t get into here, my Grandpa was an alcoholic with an abusive mean streak. (I have no memories of my Grandpa like this as he stopped drinking when I was 2).  I think my Great-Grandfather always felt like he had to look out for my Grandma, my mom and uncles. After my Grandma passed away we were discovered previously unknown bank accounts in my Grandma’s name.  With the money from the inheritance, Mom was able to pay for my two sisters and my college educations.

We thought that extra plot was the final gift from my Great-Grandfather, one last way of taking care of his family.  We did some research and discovered that when Mom’s time came, she too could be buried in the same plot as my Dad, if they were both cremated.  It seemed perfect. Then, after my Dad passed my Uncle was speaking with the cemetery caretaker about the burial we had some unexpected but not unwelcome news.  Not only was there an extra plot, but there were 8 more plots! This man, my Great-Grandfather, who I never met, was still looking out for his family. It wasn’t long before my other sister and her husband announced that they too would be buried in these extra plots.  

The day of my Dad’s burial arrived we drove down to that small little town in Iowa that I hadn’t been to for such a long time, yet it still was familiar.  There is a new Casey’s gas station, but the same grocery store, no longer named Ernie’s, was still there, looking much the same. The stately Victorian houses that lined the streets for as long as I can remember still stood proud and beckoning of another time.  I’m pretty sure that the drug store with the authentic soda fountain from the 50’s that my sisters and I would frequent when we stayed at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I half expected some stranger to come up to me and ask if I were Ned’s granddaughter, as they used to. We even saw the old house, looking very blue and a bit worse for wear, but it still was there.

The cemetery was oddly welcoming.  It was a sunny, but very chilly day.  From the memory of my grandparents’ funerals, the cemetery was surrounded by corn fields, lonely and desolate.   Generally I find cemeteries creepy, but today, though it was surrounded by new homes, peaceful. But this, surrounded by my family that have always loved me, both living and those who had gone before I felt at home.  I felt a connection to a this place. While I don’t often think of my death or what will come after, I did, at that moment feel that this was where I should be when my it is my time. It felt like home.