THE WIDOWOMAN IS "HOME!"



Over the last few months you may have wondered what happened to me. Did my surgery go well or was there a problem? Did something terrible happen to me? The answer to all those questions is “No!” My surgery went very well and I am doing great. I did move back to the town where Ned and I raised our children and reconnected with old friends and got reestablished in a faith community I have missed for years. So I guess something did happen but it was not terrible, it was terrific!!!



The most surprising thing about all of this is that I moved back to the town where we lived for about 20 years and raised our children. I moved back to the spiritual home that nurtured my husband into the faith and supported him in choosing the be ordained as a Permanent Deacon in the Catholic Church and provided the foundation of faith education for my children who are all living Christian, faith-filled lives. Maybe that does not sound surprising but, remember, I left here 30 years ago and lived in Tulsa all that time.



So, I was here for about 20 years and gone from here for 30 years.  There were friends in Tulsa and members of my extended family that were stunned by my decision to move back here – until they talked to me and heard my story. Most people could not understand why I would leave a place I had lived for 30 years to go back to a place I had rarely even visited since moving away.



The answer turned out to be very simple. It turns out that this is truly my “home.”  In the last year I learned that home really is where the heart is – not where you lived longest or where it makes the most sense to be. Home is a feeling more than a place and for me is a feeling that nurtures my soul and my spirit and energizes my life. It is a place that restores my heart– and I found my heart again when I came back here.



I am so grateful that my college roommate of 50+ years ago also moved back here and invited me to visit for a few days of catching up on all the things left unsaid in the letters and phone calls over the years. It was that invitation that sparked the idea that I could reinvent my life in a place that felt like a comfortable sofa and wrapped itself around me like a warm and familiar quilt.  Stepping into life here again was unreal. It was as if I had been gone for a few weeks, not 30 years.



When I thought about how I felt coming back to visit, I could not ignore the warmth and comfort I experienced reconnecting with old friends. The longer I stayed on that first visit back the more I realized that this truly felt like “home.’



Once I confronted that fact I was able to see that as long as Ned was alive, home was wherever he was. Once he died, I needed to find my new home. Until I came here to visit again I had no idea that “home” was what I was missing or that I would find it here.



For those of you experiencing that something is just not settled in this new life of widowhood, maybe it is time to consider finding “home” again. You are the only one who gets to say what and where “home” is for you. Look for it. Find it and build your new life there. It is now time for you to flourish again.

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