Coming Home to What is in Your Heart

There is a wonderful saying - "Homecoming means coming home to what is in your heart." It is a powerful word that conveys so much more than just a reunion tailgating party tied to an Alma Mater football game. Homecoming is a time to return to the past and unite those memories with the present. It can be a time to rejoin family and catch up. It can gather old friends around an event, catching up and feeling new again. It is a time of remembrance . . . a time to reconnect with people, places, and feelings that once moved you.

I remember a specific homecoming. I had been out on my own for several years. My career was flourishing. Life was good. Fall had arrived. The leaves were brightly colored and the apples were ripe for the picking. Something inside of me yearned to return to traditions and memories of childhood. I went home for a visit. It was a 'homecoming'. Mom had prepared my favorite foods - chocolate chip cookies, roasted chicken, pecan pie, mashed potatoes. Those smells of home filtered through every corner of the house. But the memory that is so strong in my head is bedtime. I kissed my parents good night and went to my childhood bedroom to go to sleep. I was deep in my twenties and fully independent but when my head touched that pillow, I was a little girl again. All was right in the world. I was safe. If anything bad happened in the night my dad would take care of it. I drifted off into the deepest, most content sleep I had experienced for a long time. It was a coming home to what was in my heart. It was good.

Fall is a beautiful time to come home . . . or wherever that place is that rekindles the memorable moments of your heart.