The old adage gets thrown around throughout your life and has come to mean different things to different people. When we are young and we first leave home to strike out on our own it’s usually the first time in our lives we hear the phrase and later in life when our parents have passed you tend to hear the phrase again. Each time the phrase takes on a new meaning. When we leave home young and ready to take on the world we know we can always go back home, Mom told us we could,  much to dads chagrin. Even so part of us left that can never really go back, we felt the freedom of being on our own and we want more of that.

When your parents pass the phrase takes on a much different meaning, unless you or another family member will be living in the family home then chances are you really can’t ever go home again. Sure, you can drive up the street you used to live on and reminisce about old times with the family but chances are the people living there now won’t be too happy about you dropping in.

This week my family wrapped up the final piece of our parents estate by selling the family home. In a way it was quite a cathartic experience, going through all the old memories and getting the house ready for sale with my brother and sister was painful at times but it brought out much more smiles and laughter than I would have imagined.

Together we wrapped up the lives of two wonderful people that we will miss dearly,  but they aren’t really gone and even though the house has been sold I realized that the old adage really isn’t true. You can go home;  home isn’t just a house or a place where memories were made but the feelings and memories themselves. Home is in your heart and as long as you live and breathe you can always go home. Having family to share that with makes it all that much sweeter.

Looks like I have a lot of loose ends to wrap up in the next 6 weeks before the house closes. If my timing is right then that should put me in Thailand somewhere in the last two weeks of August. It will be sad of course to close this chapter in my life but I look forward to beginning a new chapter in a new land that I hope one day to comfortably call home.