The Home We Are Building

          The second year I went to New Orleans, I wrote a second poem for the daily web update.  I didn't win any awards for this one, but it is still dear to my heart.

Home

Home

Four simple symbols

Two vertical lines

Plus a horizontal

A circle

Two small hills

Like tiny speed bumps

A half-circle

With a curved tail

Home

Such a simple word

Yet all the words

In the whole world

Could never describe it

Home

Two small boys

Racing friction cars

Down a long hallway.

Home

Daddy and a baby girl

Asleep on the porch swing

In the soft evening sun.

Home

Grandma struggles downstairs

To make her grandchildren

Breakfast before school.

Home

The kids carefully

Avoid the squeaky step

And let mama nap.

Home

A teenager moves quick

To shove the whole big mess

Into the small closet.

Home

A woman puts away work

And sits with her tea

Simply enjoying the peace.

Home

Sneaking quietly downstairs

On Christmas Eve

Hoping to spot Santa.

Home

Reaching under the pillow

And where a tooth once was

Is now a shiny quarter.

Home

The boy’s old room

Kept just the same

When he died serving his country.

Home

Little Daisy always losing

At hide and seek because

She always hides in the closet.

Home

Lives and deaths

Pots and pans

Walls and roof

Quilts and rugs

Floors and stairs

Dreams and nightmares

Small miracles

Baby’s first steps

Songs past down

Stories shared

Memories

Thoughts

That is what makes

A Home

When it’s gone,

When the family stands

On their old front steps

Staring

At a plain concrete slab

All that’s left

Of the house that held

Thousands of times shared.

As they watch,

Without walls or roof

To hold them in,

The memories float away

Like a breeze

Clearing away smoke.

They can never be replaced

All you can do

Is move on,

Though your heart longs

To chase after the wisps

Of escaped memories

Like trying to grasp

A shaft of moonlight.

But you must continue

And build a new place,

A treasure chest,

To hold all the new memories.

This is the home

We are building 

          

          Some of the things mentioned in here are specific instances that were special to our mission trip.  The friction cars came from something that started the first year I went on the trip.  We usually split into 2-3 groups that each work on a different house during the week.  The group I wasn't in was working on this one house and they kept saying how the hallway there was long and straight and perfect for kids to race friction cars down it like Mrs. McCrady used to do as a kid.  The second year I went, we were able to stop by the house and see it now that it was completed.  No one was living there yet and we got to look around.  The hallway WAS perfect.  Mrs. McCrady declared that she would personally buy the toy cars and give instructions for them to be given to the homeowners. 

          The third paragraph which lists a lot of random items and memories comes from something we saw our second year.  On our last day we got done with our house early and so we headed over to the other two houses which were side by side.  Across the street from them was an abandoned house with nothing but rotting floorboards and bare supports inside.  The door had fallen in, so we decided to investigate.  There was no furniture or personal belongings.  The garage was filled with a pile of rotting boards obviously taken from the house.  There were several holes in the floor.  Then we went into what was the front room.  There was a simple window seat covered with an assortment of random items that must have been gathered from the rubble.  There were many scraps of paper, a bent pot, a single baby slipper, several framed photos including a framed copy of a poem a daughter had written for her daddy, a spoon, an old lantern, and much more.  We looked at it all and not one of us could escape the intense sadness of looking at these mementos of lives forever changed.  You could feel the memories attached to every item.  One couldn't help but be moved. 

          Also, the slab of concrete is significant.  We drove down to the lower ninth ward, which got hit the hardest in the hurricane, several times.  In many places there is no evidence of a home at all besides a concrete slab and a pair of concrete steps leading to a porch that no longer exists.  This was another sight that never ceased to make us stop and think.  All of these things inspired and touched us.  We saw how the seemingly little things we did really did make a difference in these peoples' lives.  Who cannot help but be changed by experiences like these?