Home

Place: Golden, CO
Weather: Storm’s a-brewin
Music: Radiohead- In Rainbows
Mood: Contemplative

The concept of “home” is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Growing up, I had a very different idea of what “home” was compared to many of my friends. Lauren and I were constantly moving between the homes of our mother, father, and grandparents. Such an arrangement was necessary in light of our family circumstances, and I felt “at home” in each of those places. The moving got easier as Lauren and I adjusted to packing our things, but the routine also grew tiresome and I became envious of my friends who, generally, had lived in the same place their entire lives and could truly call that one place their home.

Looking back, I feel like I’ve always kind of been on the move, particularly in the past few years. In Ripon, I lived in 4 different rooms/apartments on campus. In the summers I lived out of a suitcase in the basement of city hall, and house-sat on and off for no less than five different people. Not to mention packing up for Alaska, Switzerland, the Raspberry Island Lighthouse, and then moving out to Colorado. In many ways, my transient qualities have been my own doing and I’ve been very grateful for the opportunities I’ve had. But part of me does miss the feeling that I’m rooted down somewhere, to a place that I know and can call (in some way) my own. I’ve talked to people that have lived in the same small town their entire lives, and have not even ventured out of their home state. I’ve also talked to people that are constantly travelling and never stay in one place for more than a year or two. I think that both are missing out, and I hope I can find a good balance between the two someday.

My twin sister got married this month and is starting a new chapter in her life in a new home with a new husband and I am so excited for her. It is a huge step and I look forward to hearing from her what married life is like. In some ways it is strange to know that she has her own place now, her own life. During our childhood we spent so much time together, and it was really only after college that we have really been apart. Even though we have been living in different places for a couple years, I feel like our paths diverged long before. Lauren and I will always be family, and our twin connection will always be a very special thing, but our connection has definitely changed as a result of being in different places and choosing very different lives. We still talk, still support each other, but it just doesn’t feel the same. Maybe part of this is just the “growing up” process that everyone goes through. I guess time will tell, but I hope our paths can converge again before too long.

Not only was my sister married, but my dad (hopefully this won’t come as a surprise to anyone) got admitted to the Mayo Clinic a few days before the wedding and had to miss it. I can’t imagine many more heartbreaking things than to find out your health is failing and, in addition, you have to miss walking your daughter down the aisle as a result. I was honored to take his place, but it should have been him. His final diagnoses include a bicuspid aortic heart valve (most people have a tri-cuspid valve), endocarditis, bacteremia, and anemia and kidney failure as a result of the infections. I’ll be going in for my own diagnostics sometime this summer (I hope) to see of my aortic valve is missing a flap too. It’s pretty scary to know that my dad had such a, relatively, serious issue happen at such a young age, but it’s good they discovered it when they did. His time in the hospital was not easy, and when you strip away all of the comforts of home, a person’s morale takes and even bigger hit. The stay was necessary, no doubt, but I’m glad he’s able to continue the rest of his treatments at home now. I think that because I work in a hospital, it is easy to forget that just setting foot in one is a traumatic experience for many people. I’ve never really had the experience to actually be a patient, but I bet it would make me a better nurse if I had that first-hand experience.

Finally, the most recent musing about “home” came this week at work. It was about 9:00pm when a woman walked up to our front desk holding some towels. Wrapped in those towels was a baby, less than a week old. I’ve heard conflicting reports about what happened next. I’ve heard she found the baby on the curb outside the hospital and, crying, brought the baby in after nobody would claim it as their own. I’ve heard that she came in crying, set the baby down on the counter, said she “couldn’t do it anymore” and was enacting Colorado’s safe-haven law. Whatever the situation, I walked up to the front to find a cute little baby with a full head of hair and part of the umbilical cord still attached being passed around to all the nurses. The baby eventually went upstairs to the nursery, and I wondered that night what events had led up to the mother handing him/her over. I wondered about the baby’s future and the different directions their life could take. How long would they stay in the hospital? Would they end up in a foster home? Would the mother regret her decision and decide to take the baby back? A couple days later, I learned that the baby had already been adopted by a family that had been waiting years for a child. I hope that home will be better, and everything turns out for the best for that little one.

-Reed