Home

I was doing so well today.  I was up early, making pie and kneading dough, getting ready for our Thanksgiving feast.  I cut the ham and mixed the potatoes, candied the pecans, and tossed the salad.  I talked to my family via skype, cleaned the kitchen, and waited for the rest of the food to cook and for Keith to come home.  I was going to be just fine.

But then during dinner Keith said something about family and this place not being our HOME home.  And then he gave me a hug.  It was the hug that undid me, and I just couldn't take it any longer.  I was homesick.  Utterly and completely.

I thought that sitting down at my new digital piano (more on it later) might help to ease my heart.  I don't have much in the way of music yet, but I do have a Christmas album.  Thinking of Santa and snow, I flipped through the book and began to play.  But my fingers did not ring out the merry tunes of Yuletide.  Instead they strummed the chords of wistful longing.  Mirthless melodies were the only music that fit my melancholic mood, and Christmas is full of them.

It caused me to reflect that on this Thanksgiving, I am most grateful for HOME.  My home, Keith's home, OUR home.  I am thankful, not only for the roof above me and the walls around me, but for the feeling that home gives me, a sense of belonging and understanding.  I am such a lucky girl to have so many people to love and so many places to feel love back.

Even though I was missing home something fierce today, I still had a great Thanksgiving.  And I think I showed Keith a little more of what TRUE Thanksgiving is all about.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!