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Women's Article

Home
by Tonya Ruiz

“Welcome Home,” the doormat offers. My wall hanging proclaims, “Home Is Where The Heart Is.” John Howard Payne wrote, “Amid pleasure and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” Elementary school children sing, “Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam....”

Growing up in the military, home was a place we longed for as we constantly moved around the world. Missouri and the dairy farm down in Wasola where my mother grew up was considered home. When my dad left for Vietnam, my mother took us home to live until he returned. During our four years in Europe, whenever a military band would strike up "America the Beautiful," my parents had tears in their eyes. Years later, back in the United States, our loud voices blended (though not well) with John Denver's as "Take Me Home Country Roads" played on our car radio.

In 1974, we finally got a home of our own when my parents purchased a fixer-upper in Southern California. As we kids grew up, we left home and started our own families, and we went home when the holidays rolled around.

In the early years of our marriage, when I would talk to my husband Ron of going home, he would gently remind me, “Honey, this is your home now.” I tried to remember that, but somehow, wherever my parents were, seemed like home.

Last spring, while I was on a trip with my family, my dad called. “Tonya,” he said, “You need to come home." "Mom is back in the hospital and it doesn’t look good.” It wasn’t. She spent her last days in a steel-framed ICU bed, dressed in a blue and white gown, hooked up to IVs and receiving oxygen through a tube to ease her labored breathing. We talked about heaven and cried together because she would be leaving us. We agreed that she would just be going ahead, waiting for the rest of us. She was ready to go; "no more sorrow, pain or tears." As we stood by her bed and held her hands, Mother took her last breath and went to her eternal home. Those of us left behind grieved, and we are still grieving.

But life keeps moving, and last August, we drove our adorable Ashley (the oldest of our four children and once upon a time, the tallest) and her mountain of belongings to college. She practically jumped and danced her way through the check-in process, so thrilled to begin her new life away from home. Her dad and I (although overjoyed for our daughter) had a hard time driving away that day.

The events of September 11th shook our home and the world. No longer was America "land of the free and home of the brave" a safe haven from evil. Evil was at our doorsteps. We are comforted by the words of Jesus in the book of John, Chapter 14: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” I realize more with each passing day, that this life is temporary. When Ashley was three, I explained what the Bible says about Heaven to her. She excitedly jumped up and said, “Quick, get your shoes, let’s go!” “Soon enough, Ashley, soon enough,” I replied.

In the book of Titus, Paul writes that women should be keepers at home. He is not saying you can’t work or have a life outside the house, just that home comes first. I am domestically challenged. My house is clean but messy, as if a herd of crazed elephants lives among us. My home décor would give Martha Stewart a panic attack, but I work hard making this a place that my children and husband feel safe, warm, wanted and comfortable; or as some would say, “at home.”

Last week, I read a newspaper report about the cleanup at Ground Zero and how few bodies have been recovered. John T. Vigiano is a volunteer at the site. He lost two sons, John and Joseph, in the attack on the World Trade Center, and only Joseph’s remains have been recovered. Of his other son, he said, “I just want to get him home.”

My husband and I pray for our soldiers overseas. He, as a Vietnam vet, knows what it entails to serve our country in a foreign land. I experienced the heartache of war as a child whose father was gone during my early years. I remember that, throughout the war, my mother cried tears of parting, loneliness and worry. Now I watch many families reliving those same scenes on the evening news and I pray that they will also relive the tears of joy we all cried when my father finally came home.

Home, what a beautiful word. Unlike Dorothy, I don’t need any ruby-red slippers to realize, "There’s no place like home."

Tonya Ruiz Tonya and her husband reside in Southern California with their four children. She is an author, actress, and speaker.

Visit Tonya on the web at www.tonyasquest.com