She writes uplifting and spiritual thoughts in a weekly email newsletter she calls “Sunday Paper”. Today she writes about changes in life. She struck a chord in me but probably not in the way that she intended.

This Parkinson thing is a dramatic change in our life. Maria uses as her focus a friend that is moving far away and talks of pivoting toward the future. What struck me is Cheryl is moving away inside. Not purposely of course but this morning the conversation centered on location and space. She believes inside her head that we are far away from home. She asked are we going home today?

Home is a concept different to everyone. I told Cheryl as I always do when she asks this, we are home. We live here. Sometimes I go into more detail and tell her when we moved. She has a puzzled look on her face when I tell her those things. Sometimes I regret moving out of our big old house in Pleasant Ridge when we have these conversations but I have no basis for regret. She is confused now and most likely would be if we were still living in the big old house.

To me home is not so much a place as a situation. If one “googles” home the famous web search returns thousands of pictures of various houses in various places but a building is not home. Those houses may or may not be home to others.

Cheryl is where I am home. Our life was unimaginable to me when we got married 51 years ago.

On this snowy slowly warming February Sunday I am reminiscing about life and home and the twisty turny path we all follow though life. And that is my concept of home.

She sometimes thinks that we are not home. I am as long as I am with her somewhere.

Carpe Diem.