RESTING PLACE

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I’m still on the topic of home.

Years after writing a confusing memoir entirely devoted to stories of family, Germany, and this longing for some sort of permanence, I still find myself rummaging through my memories in hopes that I’ll uncover whatever it is I’ve been reaching for my whole life. It has been said that this desire for home stems from our eternal souls; their knowledge that this isn’t all there is. I believe that to be true, but I also don’t think that’s the whole story. Something must be said for our personal history shaping our longings and reachings.

All throughout my childhood, we were defined by movement. First, our immigration from Germany when I was a year old. Then, the cross-country treks… and within that space, there was one constant. My Oma and Opa’s yellow house in the same town where I was born, on that street, in that neighborhood surrounded by trees and a graveyard; by cobblestones and a field where it’s said that gypsies used to roam.

Year after year, we’d return to the same place, the same house, with the same people and a few new cousins. Oma’s roses would still be flourishing in the front yard, she’d still make Borscht as the first meal around the table, and question why I didn’t kneel before bed to say my prayers.

When my Oma was given the grave news that she had a rare form of cancer, we flew over and my world began to shift, to slip through my fingers in a dizzying sense that I had little time.

I wrote pages every day of conversations, places, and Oma’s own journey as her health declined. To this day, I think of her pressing ornaments, picture frames, and figurines into our hands as her last physical act of giving. She had nothing else, her body decaying.

I say this, because what happens when our constants change? When what we’ve known as a resting place is gutted of the very things that gave it life?

What happens when you drive away from the house that’s been with you since childhood, that Yellow House with the blue room and that guest bedroom downstairs that housed your mother’s wedding dress— what happens when the front stoop is empty? When no one is waving goodbye and the roses have become hedges and her paintings are no longer on the wall?

What happens when the rest of the world has moved on, but you are an ocean away and had no idea that the closest you ever came to home will never be the same?

I still don’t know.

I just know that when my husband and I bought our first house, the only thing I could think of was how much I needed to plant roses.

I just know whenever I make Borscht, I think of her and I hope she’s proud. I still long for the Yellow House, still dream of my time in the blue room overlooking the forest.

Most of all, I just know that it may be up to me to make a home. One worth missing, longing for. To stand on the stoop and wave goodbye. To nurture my plants and leave letters for my loved one’s to find in their day to day. To prepare food that is nourishing and have a table surrounded by conversation, honesty, and laughter.

Because if I’ve learned anything at all, it’s that it is rare and sacred to have something that splits your heart, that makes you feel like you can never be whole without it.

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