My apartment is empty for the summer—Megan and CoCo moved home with her dad until fall and I am staying at the lake with Craig. It is beautiful here and he has been more than wonderful about sharing his home and helping me to feel a part of it.

On some level, this is progress. In the fall and winter I was still living out of a suitcase dividing my time between my apartment, the house at the lake and the loft where we work. So, now I have most of my clothes in one closet, but, it is summer and as it usually happens every week is already spoken for. Places to go and people to see and while these are all good and worthy plans-- the truth is, my life as a nomad is beginning to take its toll.

I want to be a traveler but not a wanderer and for a while at least, I would like my suitcase to reside in a dusty attic where it does nothing more than play host to cobwebs.

I need roots. I want to start something, build something, grow something…so that the lush and beautiful vines of this thing—this existence-- curl around my ankles and wrap around my toes and connect me to the earth again. I long for familiarity… to dwell in a place where I am reflected in the light and the shadows and walk into rooms that smell of leftovers, freshly washed cotton sheets and lilacs.

I miss my beautiful old house. Every room, every sound, every corner whispered some secret about our life there. I miss the history. The girls and I together…working through a divorce, struggling with cancer and poor—but, happy—so incredibly happy.

In saying this, I realize that, it is not the house that I am missing…it is the life it represented.

Underneath this quest for roots, I have discovered a new layer of grief—the raw realization that—no matter where I live or what I do—no matter how happy I am in the future, it will never feel like it did when the three of us were together. The days we spent together in that house represent to me perfection…the American dream, winning life’s lottery—heaven on earth.

At the end of Ali’s life, she would often wake up, look at me intently and say with urgency, “I just want to go home…momma will you please take me home.”

One time, not knowing how to answer, I kissed her forehead and said, “ok, Ali, momma took you home and I’m tucking you into your bed”. She grabbed my hand, looked at me with a smile and said very emphatically, “thank you mom”.

I was never sure exactly what she was crying out for…but, maybe on some level, it is the same thing that I am missing now. Perhaps as her life was replaying itself in her mind, she came to the part about a house in Goshen and paused for a while as she remembered each of those moments that made our life together uniquely our own.

Maybe as I looked over and saw her smiling as she slept, she was remembering what it felt like on Christmas morning or the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen. Our life, our home--the light, the shadows, the smells—I do believe that is part of it, but there was more to it.

Ali and I shared a longing for home—but with different perspectives. People who are dying, see things that we don’t. I believe—from what I witnessed lying at her side-- that part of a dying person’s peace—is a view of things from God’s eyes.

While I grieve because that feeling of home seems lost in the past—Ali was seeing the place where we would ultimately be reunited.

If you think about it, Paradise…is not about where you are at, but who you are with.

Ali did want to go home, but not to any place that I could take her.

Maybe if I listened closer, I would have heard her say, “take me home, momma—because I've seen it and you’re right—it’s never going to feel the same as when we were all here together—one day it’s going to be even better and you’re not gonna believe what I’m going to show you”.