I wouldn’t necessarily paint a picture of my mother as a home body. She was a fairly well traveled woman, having been to several countries and even living abroad for a few years in Romania. Lately, however, she has been quite fond of home.

When we last visited in May of this year, she could frequently be heard muttering that she just wanted “to go Home.” When people struggle with Alzheimer’s, it is common that they’ll remember familiar things and people of years long past. While this comes at the expense of shorter term memory, I like it that until her truly dying days (which we are now in the midst of) she longed for something so fundamentally familiar as Home.

While the sadness and sorrow of Mom’s final weeks, perhaps months, are upon us, there is also real joy mingled with the pain. Tears from both the joy and sorrow flow, at times together and at times apart, as I think of her idea of going Home. It brings her comfort to be home. Home is her place to be herself. Home is where you find Dad. Home is a place to rest. Home is where you can climb into bed, close your eyes, and doze off peacefully.

For her, for us, though, there is more to the idea of Home. Home is not just her house in Little Elm, TX, with the comforts of Dad’s presence and familiar surroundings. Home is, for the Christian, an eternal dwelling with God, whereby all the cares of this world are left behind. There we have no more pain, no more suffering, no more sorrow, no more sin. There we have an end to all the strife, and we have our non-earthbound bodies with healed brains and mended souls.

There’s no place like Home.

[v1]
Don’t you know I’ve got tickets on the morning train
And I’ve always tried to travel light
Though I’ve spent some time packing up my things
Gonna leave it all behind for everything

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
When the wheels of this train leave this town

[chorus]
All I want is to be home
All I want is to go home

[v2]
Don’t you know that I’ve shuffled ’round this place
I might forget your name but I’ll smile at your face
And I’ve heard my friends are comin’ into town
Gonna meet me at the church and sing me here and gone

Here I go, the wheels are turning ’round
All that I have lost will now be found

[chorus]
All I want is to be home
All I want is to go home

[bridge]
When I sail beyond the Jordan
And all my memories return
Oh I want to see how far I’ve come
And hear Him say, “Well done.”

[chorus]
All I want is to be home
All I want is to go home