Memory is a boneyard of images—part truth, part feeling. Not always accurate, but deeply meaningful. The stories we carry, the ones passed down from before we were born, help shape who we are. Our ancestors’ experiences echo into the present.
My mother, Cleopha, was the daughter of Polish/Ukrainian immigrants who settled in a small valley town surrounded by mountains. At night, when I curled up beside her in bed, she’d tell me stories about her childhood. One of my favorites was about Duke, a reddish-brown horse with a velvety nose who was her best friend. She would ride him into a wide green meadow and rest him under a shady tree.
One day, she found an old magazine lying near the trail. That day, instead of daydreaming with the clouds, she leaned against the tree where Duke was tied and looked through pictures of things she longed for, reading about far-off places she ached to be. I used to fall asleep with those images in my head—my mom as a little girl on her horse, dreaming of a world beyond the valley.
There were other stories too—the painful ones. Ones that seeped out through her pores and could not be contained. On our bus rides home, we passed a red brick building on Colorado Boulevard with a wrought iron sign that read Home of the Good Shepherd, arched over the gate. One day, she told me she and her sisters had lived there during a hard time in their family. She didn’t explain much, but I could feel the piercing pain behind her words.
She told me about the swings in the backyard of that place—how she’d pump her legs to swing high enough to look over the wall. At night, she listened to the sound of trains in the distance, and dreamt of returning home.
The search for home is universal, and it’s not just the place we’re born into. Homer wrote about Odysseus’ search, his longing to return to what was familiar and all of the challenges and obstacles that impeded the journey. The Odyssey is an epic poem, not just about a character named Odysseus, but about all of us. It’s the story buried in boneyards of collective memory, and collective longing; a sacred DNA that stirs, resulting in a search for belonging.
When I was growing up, my mother and I moved once a year. After my parent’s divorce, life was just the two of us. Looking back now, I remember being afraid and sometimes embarrassed by our little duo, not really a family. Other children had tales of cousins and backyard reunions that made me feel lonely for something I wished I’d had.
Sometimes I knew from the look on my mother’s face as she hunched over the kitchen table, paying bills, just how alone we were. I think that we hung on by a thread. Still, every year we moved . . . the search for home.
In my heart I can see her as a little girl, riding Duke into the meadow. I think that was the happiest time in her life. And like her, my life has been a journey of searching and seeking. Sometimes that has manifest in changing geographical locations, something I’ve always found exciting. But now at the edge of my twilight years, the journey home has taken on more of a mythical tone, that universal quality of returning to one’s self. Ram Das said it so well, We are all just walking each other home.
Married to someone who walks with me, we now embark on our own Odyssean journey. Our house has a for sale sign in the front yard. Half of our things are packed up and in storage. We are two children leaning against a shade tree in the meadow, sharing fantasies of an almost mythical place. Both of us are longing for the familiarity of forest trails and water awaits us.
In this liminality, I weave together the strands of my ancestors’ stories. Inside of me is a quiet pull. I do my best to surrender, to let it guide me home – not so much to a place, but to a state of mind that will nourish me the rest of my days.
Try this: Stand in the sunlight. Close your eyes and stretch out your arms. Now imagine your mother standing behind you, her arms open wide. Behind her, your grandmother. And behind her, your great-grandmother. Keep going back, beyond the names and faces that you know to those who you you don’t know but whose lives helped to shape yours, nonetheless.
Feel them with you, warmed by the sun. Their arms and hearts open, supporting you as you face the big “what’s next.” Breathe them in. They’re part of you, always with you. They too were spun from the threads of longings—to love, to belong, and to one day come home to yourself. Thank them.
Are there stories of homecoming that you remember from your mother? Or your grandmother? How do those stories still live in you? Please share in the comments and let’s have a conversation.
Thank you for your readership and for sharing your stories. They bind us, each and every one. Maybe we are never as alone as we fear we are. Maybe we’ve been standing at the threshold of home our entire lives.
My mother was never a safe home for me or my brothers. We survived, damaged and at odds with one another. I think you're right, that the more expansive our sense of home, the more at peace we are. For me, it's letting go of my childhood home to embrace my community, my own family, my new granddaughter.
I like your idea of standing in the sun ☀️ with arms outstretched, imagining other mothers.