Our House

With so many people in war forced to flee…forced to run away…forced along the streets of their country to roam…in the peaceful calm of the morning I stopped to give thanks for our home. It’s where our children grew up…our grandchildren played…it’s been a fortress for our family… I can’t imagine what it would feel like…if we suddenly had to flee. How tragic…how sorrowful…how demeaning…how unkind… If one day we were forced to flee…and leave everything behind. This house has our DNA within its walls…our genes…our chromosomes…What would it feel like to abandon all the things that make this house our home? The bed we’ve shared for years…the table where we eat dinners and where many a game’s been played…the fireplace that kept our family warm…the chair Deborah’s father made. Our photo albums…our books…the artwork on our walls… the door with our family’s heights recorded…from the closet in the hall. As I looked at our house I thought how nothing would alleviate…nothing would appease…if all we could take were the clothes on our back and a lifetime of memories. And when I thought of all the people I have loved… who have passed through our front door… I can’t imagine losing all of this… to the senselessness of war.