Homeplaces in the Heart

For the last 35 years, I have lived in South Carolina with my husband and sons.  All the rest of our family live in Alabama.  So for all those years, we traveled at least twice a year to visit family during different holidays.  Each time we enjoyed our families but felt like something was missing...our home.  So last spring, after all those years, my DH and I bought a "homeplace" in Alabama.  We found a house that we loved and wanted to work on and spend our holidays. A home for our family to love.

We do love it.  In fact, we dream about it!  We spent the summer working on it and my DH has been back several times this fall.  I haven't been "home" since July.

I call it our homeplace even though we have owned it only seven months and only lived in it about five weeks in the summer.  We are going to the "homeplace" during Christmas and I can't wait.

I started thinking about the word "homeplace" today.  I looked the word up in the dictionary and it means "a family home" or "birth place".  So I started thinking about my real "homeplace" which is in Grand Prairie, Texas.  I'm not really from Alabama at all, that is just where my dad, brothers, aunts, uncles and cousins live.

So here is picture of my first home which is my real "homeplace."

My first "homeplace" was a garage that my dad built himself.  We lived in the back of the garage.  It was pretty neat.  We didn't have a front door, only a door from the big bright kitchen to the back yard.  My room was a bed in a closet.  But what wonderful memories I have of that place!  I can't go there again in real life because the garage home was sold and torn down.  Two new homes are built there now. Every family member moved from Texas.  There is no reason to go back.

So I bought a new "homeplace" in Alabama to start new family traditions.  This new "homeplace" is 102 years old.  I love my blue cottage and love my job in SC, but I hear the whisper "time is short".  And I wake up every morning knowing that we all need to cherish the time we have with each other.  A "homeplace" can be anywhere, but the place it will always be is in your heart.


Lottie