Hello, Home

You can’t leave us.

She always meant to bake cookies for Mr. Fred before he passed away.

She wore his heavy, camouflage jacket that hung almost to her knees. He handed her his .22 rifle and said, “Shoot at that hill.”

She raced her friend down the dead-end road on a rusted, purple bike with broken handlebars. She wrecked, smearing the cement with the left side of her face.

At least I was winning.

Her friend’s dad carried her to their house, and all the neighbors on that street gathered outside. Salty tears stung her bloody cheek as she pressed her fingers against the ceramic tiles of the dining room table, while the window air conditioning unit hummed at her back.

She loved the smell of pecan pies and the sound of her cousin singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in the other room. If only it would’ve snowed.

Every Sunday morning she ran over to the wooden bench in the corner. He would hug her and let her stay there until the music stopped. He’d grab his big leather Bible and walk toward the stage.

Two months before he died of cancer, he told her he trusted her prayers.

They weren’t related. But she told them to call her Nana. She made them jars of plum preserves from the tree in the backyard. They’d hunt colored eggs in April and shoot fireworks in July and ask their moms to stay a little while longer when it was time to leave.

I reckon so.

Turn left on Bluebird Road.

First published in Our Jackson Home (Vol. 4, Issue 3)

When I was eight years old, my family moved to Friendship, Tennessee, a town with a population of about 650 people. Having lived in Des Moines, Iowa, for most of my life, the only appeal of moving south was my aunt and her family who lived in the area. I remember my surprise that a place so small could feel so loud. September was the month we moved, and even though the trees shed their covering earlier than normal that year, it still felt warm.

A few weeks before Christmas, I helped my aunt bake pecan pies in her kitchen as the afternoon sunshine spilled through the single-pane windows clad with red-and-white checkered curtains. More than once, as we scurried around the kitchen, we slipped on the bright red, crocheted rug that lacked rubber backing. The house smelled sweet as my mom and cousin decorated a tree in the adjoining living room, singing along to holiday tunes by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

It didn’t take long for me to feel at home. The following summers consisted of many evening walks with my mom on quiet roads covered with canopies of deep-green leaves, as we were joined by the hypnotic glow of fireflies and the songs of cicadas. I attended a church where everyone felt like family. I shot a .22 for the first time in my uncle’s backyard. My brother and I swam in a four-foot, above-ground, cobalt blue pool with kids who were like our siblings.

Like many young people, I eventually grew restless, wanting to see different places and experience new things. I longed to escape—to prove to everyone around me, and really to myself, that no small town could confine me. But after traveling throughout the U.S. and eventually overseas, I began to realize that home had less to do with place and more to do with people. Those people are the place I come back to, and each time I leave, I’m thankful that this little town of mine is small enough to carry with me.