Home is where the heart is

Home is where the heart is.

They say home is where the heart is and this I know, I use to run to you, I use to be right by your side. The memories within these walls. If the walls could talk and the windows were the eyes to the souls that lived here.

Let me tell you what home means to me. It was a place I could run and hide in your arms away from harm. You taught me right from wrong you always made me feel like I belong.

You taught me to walk and stand tall and always believe in myself. Never to hide my feelings whether they’re big or small.

I know in life that some people stand yet some fall too. I lived in my childhood home for so many years, I watched you grow as I did too. Not many seem to realise when we grow older our parents and loved ones grow older along with us. Sometimes we concentrate on our own wellbeing and stop the seeing the age lines those grey hairs that sweep across your parent's hair. The changes of time bring you there.

Although we grow older, we don’t tend to want to believe the ones we love the most slip away to yesterday. My mother slipped away before my very eyes. My father was in the same room too. I never felt so unglued. Everything you were and still are is home to me. You might not grace this world anymore but wherever I find beauty I find you. I see you in the butterflies, I see you as the clouds in the sky. I feel you there in the pouring rain washing away my pain.

I see you in the eyes of my sweet daughter that you did not meet. But sometimes I see a lot of you in her. The way she stares. It’s like looking at you.

I have seen this house change over time, the family dinners and family departures as one by one everyone went their separate ways with their own lives, yet I made a promise to stay by your side. Even when I got older and grew my wings to fly, I stayed not so far from you.

You are the reason you gave me life here. You are the reason that I have come to face the many seasons ahead. You left me but not by choice when I was just 32. Our last Christmas you told me it would be your last, but I did not want to hear. All I ever wanted was to have you here. For all my days. You are all my yesterdays but the saddest part of myself is that I will have no more tomorrows with you.

You will always be the invisible hand that takes me for a walk. You will always be a memory that sits in your chair and have me combing your hair. You will always be the whisper I long to hear “goodnight my baby”

Every favourite song of yours that we use to sing will bring a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat. You Ma you never really knew how much you meant to me.

You see warriors run. Sometimes they fall down like an old oak tree.

But we must take the stories you told me and echo them into tomorrow.

I want to let the world know right now; I have no idea how I managed to walk this land without you. For a long time, I didn’t want to get out of bed or face another day. I slept my life away. I mourned you ma. You didn’t want to go; I know you didn’t want to leave. I remember what you said on the last day I saw you alive. You told me you loved me and that you always will and I must never forget that and I never will.

Departing this world from someone you love is the hardest thing of all.

I…... one day will have to say my last goodbyes, but I wish I could live forever like I wish you could too.

No matter how much time has passed. Love will never end. Love will never fade.

You are the flame to the candle that will forever burn bright. You are my guiding light in the dark. My memories flood to you when I am blue. Every day I stop and think of you.

A love that never comes unglued. I miss you Ma.

Love always your Daughter.

Elizabeth ( Your baby girl )