Back home

I have returned home from a brief trip to Eureka and my alma mater where we were celebrating Alumni Weekend. "Weekend" is a misnomer. It's actually an afternoon and evening. But I suppose Alumni Weekend sounds better than Alumni 8-hour Event.

I am on the alumni board of my college, so I was sort of required to be there, but I wanted to be there also. Friends of mine, T and his wife, were receiving the Outstanding Young Alumni award. I was happy to see that because I nominated them! T and his wife began a charitable foundation in the name and memory of their daughters who died at birth. Their foundation has been around about three years and has donated about $30,000 to our state Children's Hospital and also to the obstetric unit in their own city. Through tears, T told us the story of the foundation and related it back to the ethos of the college which seems to be, in short, "go from here and do something to make this world a better place." It was a great, moving celebration of how they have lived since college and I was really, really proud of him and really very proud to be his friend.

The day itself was beautiful, too. I stayed at Grammy and Gramps' last night and slept in this morning. As my grandmother said, "A mother needs a night of good sleep away from her children every once in a while." She was right. I truly enjoyed the day. The weather was warm, but breezy and the college was in its most beautiful state -- lilacs and flowers blooming, trees and grass green and lush, red brick buildings stately and welcoming as always. I walked around and visited new features -- a graduation brick pathway -- a labyrinth -- I've not visited. I walked the campus and remembered racing around the tall oaks that used to fill the area when Roo and I were little and spent some time driving around town, seeing many people out and about enjoying the day.

And I felt myself really longing for it all. My hometown is part of me in a way I just can't fill elsewhere. Perhaps it is because generations of my family have lived there. Perhaps it's because I can't let go. Whatever it is -- I feel at home there in a way no place else has fulfilled.

So though I returned home to my family tonight, I feel like I also came back to my regular sojourn. And into it, out of this lovely and renewing weekend, I bring the powerful feeling of being back home.