'Coming Home' People

"We need to have people who mean something to us; people to whom we can turn, knowing that being with them is coming home."
- Fr. Bernard Cooke

Sharing Secrets - Tamara de Lampicka, Oil on Canvas, 1928

My friend Debra posted this quote on facebook last night.(Please see her blog about being an artist at From Skilled Hands.)

Maybe because it was Mother's Day, maybe because I had had a rare and luxuriously long phone conversation with My Twin that afternoon, or maybe because I welcomed a friend back to town on Saturday night whom I had not seen in months (and who was very, very happy to be back), but reading these words resonated so deeply inside me that I was brought to tears.

When we say something 'resonates' in us, what do we mean? Well, for me, it means that I feel an honest-to-goodness vibration in the pit of my stomach. I've come to learn that it's how to recognize the essence of truth in a message to us.

The message may be expressed via the spoken word, the written word,  or even a facial expression. It may be delivered in the strains of a melody, the lyrics of a song, or the stanza of a poem. It may simply be expressed in a casual comment by a stranger sitting next to us on the bus. Whatever the means of delivery, that vibration inside you is a sure sign that the message is meant for you.

I am so grateful to the many people in my life for whom being with them is like coming home. Many of these people are in my very own family...how nice is that? I know some people who go to great lengths to avoid their families. I'm thankful that's not me.

I have dear friends close by with whom I've raised my children, celebrated good times, and mourned the bad. Each time I'm with them it's like coming home.

I've reconnected with people from my youth and childhood, thanks to the wonders of facebook and the Internet. It was almost instantaneous with many of them, the feeling of coming home again. 

I'm really looking forward to seeing one of these friends in just days now. She and I attended Johnson Elementary School together...elementary school! I'm so excited to see her again, break bread with her, walk with her, and show her around my little part of the world. Just thinking about it makes me feel like I'm coming home!

Sometimes, new friends are 'coming home people' too. Debra falls into that category. When I told her that the quote brought me to tears, do you know what she replied? "And I will hand you a tissue and give you a hug."  Oh, yeah...that's a coming home person. I won't list your names (you know who you are), but there are many others, too who make me feel the same way...so very lucky to know them. 

In June, I'll have the chance to really go home to Kansas City for my high school reunion.  It will be the first reunion I've ever attended. It's taken me forty years, but I plan on making up for lost time with these dear friends. I'm already feeling that warm and comfortable feeling of coming home to them.

Whoever they are, wherever they are, I wish for you the special comfort of Coming Home People.

"Lead us to a place, guide us with your grace, give us faith so we'll be safe..." The lyrical poetry of this song feel like coming home to me.

Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli sing the duet from the original soundtrack for "Quest for Camelot" by David Foster..."The Prayer." Enjoy.