Neosho, Missouri
Last week we visited my parents in Missouri where I grew up. How fun it is watching my children enjoy the same things I most loved doing as a child. Many of my childhood days were spent beside the creek or on top of a row of hay bales. I was always outside stretching my limits and imagination. Last week, I watched my son as he learned to climb onto the hay bales and jump from one to the other after his cousins’ lead. This photo of them is the very sum of my childhood days growing up in the Midwest.
Now the smell of hay takes me right back to my roots and intertwines deeply with my sense of home. In fact, I told Darren I loved him for the first time in a hayloft overlooking the fields where I grew up. That loft was a sacred space for me where I prayed and worked out much with God over the years. So it made sense to whisper words of love and beginnings there. We commemorated that moment with a photo of Darren and I snuggled on a hay bales — quite similar to the photo above. Only now there are two little people sandwiched between us as we write our family’s story.
Home is in our roots. Perhaps the roots of childhood, yes. But more even more, the roots we establish today in our own homes and families. I don’t know what will trigger childhood memories for my children. Growing up in New England, it will likely be the salty smell of the ocean or the way the leaves smell come fall. Whatever it is, I hope our family’s roots run deep, anchoring us to each other and calling us back to what matters most.