A Norvell Note
October 3, 2022 – Vol. 26 No. 31
I Just Want to Go Home
I’ve said those words many times. As a child, every time I tried to stay away from home overnight, about the time it started getting dark and I missed my Mama I’d say, “I just want to go home.” Usually, I followed that up with “I have a stomachache.” I said those words when I went to Boy State as a teenager. And I said those words on mission trips to Ukraine during the first forty-eight hours of our trip, and after we had completed most of our mission.
I’ve heard those words a few times our children were small and one of their overnight guests would get homesick. I’ve heard it when college students were not doing well in their classes, had their hearts broken, or received bad news from home. “I just want to go home.”
I’ve heard from an elderly man who had lived a good life, worked hard, and lost use of most of his physical abilities and bodily functions. With tears in his eyes, he said, “I’m so tired. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I just want to go home.” I’ve heard it from the widow who lost her husband and best friend and now must face life alone. I hear it said when a person has reached the end of life and been told there is nothing left that can be done. “I just want to go home.” And I hear it in the voices of the caregivers who are exhausted from too many hours and too much sickness and death.
I think I read those words in my four-year-old granddaughter’s eyes as she lay in her hospital bed attached to tubes and monitors. I know I saw it in the eyes of my daughter and son-in-law as they prepared for another night in a hospital room.
I still say it some days when it starts getting dark, I’m tired, feel helpless, and miss my Mama. I just want to go home.
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