For a lot of years, I didn’t go anywhere. With five kids and homeschooling, a ton of dogs and other animals to care for, a husband who was seldom home and loads of gardening and farm work to do and not much money, we didn’t even take vacations.
But I love seeing new places and traveling, so now that the kids are older, I was able to go to three different writing things this year, flying out to each of them.
This past weekend I was in south Texas visiting a writing friend, Alexa Verde. I love Texas – big and hot and so much history. I love the other places I was at this year – Minnesota and Lake Superior and South Dakota, the Black Hills and the hardy people who live there. But there is something so sweet about pulling into my driveway, seeing the pasture we cleared and planted and fenced, seeing the cows under the shadow of the Blue Ridge and driving under the sugar maples that line the last one hundred 
yards of our drive and pulling into our house.
yards of our drive and pulling into our house.Sunday night when I got home, my family had waited up for me, and in the darkness, figures materialized as I parked. My daughter was hugging me before I even got out of my car and my dog was trying to climb into my lap (she’s a 60 pound German Shepherd, but she thinks she’s my lap dog). A warm, late summer breeze blew softly, stirring the leaves in the apple tree, and a half moon shone, giving the mountains in the distance just an outline of the grandeur I knew was there.
There’s something about the mountains that I love and that feels like home, even though these mountains are different than the ones I grew up in up in PA. I suppose they’re like sentinels, in a very real way, because they interrupt the air currents and keep us safe from tornadoes. I love thunderstorms and do not fear them, mostly because I know the mountains literally have my back.
When I drive to PA, I cross the Potomac River and drive a few miles through Maryland before I hit the PA line. Those mountains are the familiar bench shape, they look older, but smaller. Nestled on this side of Town Hill Mountain, is the little town of Amaranth. Just a post office and one or two houses, plus a church, of course. (What is a town without a church?)
It’s about two hours from where I grew up in PA and my Aunt Ruth used to live there. I visited her farm for a week or so each summer before I was old enough to work full time on the farm at home. It’s where I learned what an electric fence was. (And if you know, you know, right? ) It’s where I first smelled that clean, slightly farm scent of dozens of fresh eggs, just laid. (They owned a chicken house, such as it was back then, along with their beef cattle and hogs.)
We baked peach cobbler, peeled a million apples (and threw the peels to the hogs), stepped on thistles, learned to quilt and play cut-throat games of checkers. My aunt was paralyzed from the chest down, but I never heard her complain. She was not depressed and she didn’t mope. She got up every morning and worked just as hard as anyone I knew, and hard work was a given in my family. I learned a lot from her, and I loved my time on her farm, but I’d sit at the window in the spare room after everyone else had gone to bed and watch the headlights on I70 go up Town Hill and over the other side and wish I was home, because as much fun as I was having, home was always where I wanted to be.
I guess to me, home is where people love you. Where they run out to your car and hug you before you can get out of it, even if you were only gone three days. Where you laugh and cry and work together. Where the mountains remind you that God is your strength and help, where you sing and play instruments and the halls ring with God’s music and praise to him. Where you step outside, and yeah, there’s a lot of work to do, but many hands make light work and home is where the work is light and there’s good food, fun and fellowship with people who love you, and who like you, too. Because there’s a difference, right?
But, maybe the older I get, the more real the idea has become to me that this world is not my home. Aunt Ruth isn’t here anymore, nor any of her sisters, my beloved aunts, whom I used to visit as well. My mom resides in Heaven and it feels like more and more of the people who love me have moved there. Maybe that’s one of the lessons of life, since, I love my earthly home, but I am more and more eager to get to my Heavenly one.
Home is one of my favorite things. What makes your home feel like home to you?
USA Today best-selling author Jessie Gussman writes sweet and inspirational romance from her farm in central Virginia. Having attended, but never graduating from the school of hard knocks, Jessie uses real life on the farm to inspire her cowboy, rural and blue-collar fiction.
When she’s not chasing kids, cows and the occasional roll-away haybale, Jessie enjoys wading in Naked Creek and not cleaning her house. Most of the time her main goal is to keep from catching herself on fire…again.
If you enjoy fun stories with vivid characters showcasing strong families with a ribbon of faith tying everything together, you might enjoy Jessie’s books.
My daughter and her husband, who travels around the world on business at least three months a year have a stone doorstop, “Home is where you automatically link to WiFi”
I love it! Haha.
My family makes my home feel like true home, but I’ve always (my whole life) felt a pull back to my Heavenly Home! I won’t be sad when it’s time to return, but I leave that in God’s hands. If I’m still here, then there’s more for me to learn and do!
“… trailing clouds of glory” -Wordsworth
That’s exactly right. And I love that quote.
All my children are gone now but home is where my dogs are crowding my car door even before I get it in park. It’s where my husband greets me with a cup of coffee in his hands.
It’s where people (and animals!) love you. : )
Nowhere on this earth feels like home to me anymore. I am so looking forward to my Heavenly home!
That’s how it is supposed to be!
All my belongings are here and I can wear my night gown all day.
I love my jammies!
Jessie, Your words always ring true. To some, it is the big old house, that says home. To others, it is a feeling, more than a place. When you are around people that you love, any place can feel like home.
When my parents moved from the city, to Arkansas, the city didn’t feel like home anymore. But the little house in Arkansas, did! Even now, with both of my parents gone, that little place is still home. My sister is in the process of moving down there, and living in the house, so, it will stay “Home”, to me.
I agree and I love that your sister is moving in. How nice!
What a beautiful post! I81 is beautiful through the mountains.
I just took my youngest to college. Home has been about kids for the past 27 years. I’m in a season on transition. But home is always love and a place for the boys to land.
That’s a sad but exciting time. Hugs! And I love I81 – the scenery the whole way up through VA is just amazing!
Home is where you can lounge around and be comfortable just being you. It’s where your children and grandchildren are always welcomed. It gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling upon arriving when you’ve been away.
Such a great picture of home!
I always liked the Buckaroo Bonsall like, “Home is where you wear your hat.” However, I like to think a house is not a home without a cat.
Haha! That could be true!
Home is where my entire family comes to gather together to love on each other and it’s the home where we brought our almost 42 year old to when she was born. The oldest was already six, the middle was four. It’s where we picked mulberries off of our trees, raised chickens and the girls took turns gathering the eggs and we grew food to eat and we harvested the food and thoroughly enjoyed the fresh taste of what we grew. Our grandchildren have known no other place but this one, to romp and play, swim in the pool, have birthday parties, and drive the golf cart around. It’s where they first learned to drive in that golf cart, and got over that fear, it’s where they learned to shoot their BB guns, which led to our oldest grandson becoming a hunter of ducks and deer! It’s where our middle daughter and our youngest grandson lived for a year while her Navy man, our first son-in-law, was in Japan. It’s where the door is always open and where everybody is loved, completely and unconditionally!! Home IS where your heart is!
What a beautiful picture of life and love and fun and fellowship through the years! I love it!
Home is definitely where your heart is. I recall when we took a job in Chicago. I never wanted to go there again as it wasn’t my kind of place. It definitely was not heaven as we had just left the Smoky Mountains in Townsend, TN, where our HOME was. What a terrible shock. The day we left that job to return HOME was the best day of my life (after the birth of my two children) . When we walked in the door of our home in Townsend, we hugged each other and cried. The mountains are my home, especially the Smoky Mountains. Have you ever seen anything more beautiful??
The Smokies are awesome! I know what you mean about the mountains. What a joy it is to come home!
I was dating a guy in college and I knew it wouldn’t work out when we disagreed about the meaning of “home”. I said it’s where the heart is, and he replied that he thought home was where you hang your hat. That wasn’t something on which I wanted to “agree to disagree”!
Some things are too important to disagree on!
Home is where family is so we have discovered being in the RV a lot this summer home is where we park it and meet up with family members.
Sounds like fun!
Family makes my home complete. But … in the wintertime, I would say the wood burning stove speaks “home” to me . In the summertime, my dahlia gardens speak “home” to me. Ultimately, Heaven is my home, but until then … I enjoyed your blog Jessie.
I love a wood burning stove! Thanks so much!
welcome today Jessie. I am the oldest of five and have always found that “home” to me was the people within the walls of the house. Now as I am married it is even more so. The people are really what we allow God to bring us all together.
That’s true. It’s the people who matter!
Home is a lonely place as of late. I lost both of my parents within 3 months of each other and it been only 8 months since.my dad past. My daughter currently lives in Colorado but she is moving here in April of 2024. So home to me right now is my church, that is where I feel most loved and at peace, I look forward to my heavenly home even more with each year I get older. Thanks for your loving and humorous stories of your home!
I’m so sorry for your double loss. That’s so hard. But I love that your daughter is moving back! That’s awesome! I agree about church. It feels like home to walk in.
What a beautiful post, Jessie! I have a deep longing for Heaven someday, but for now, I feel like I’m waiting for my true earthly home to come around. Being in our mid-20s, my husband and I have plenty of time (God willing!!), but we both long for living life on a small homestead. Life with the little house with the front porch across the front, chickens and pigs and a dairy cow or two, and most importantly, filled with whatever hard work the Lord wills for us and our little girls (and any other blessings that may come along) is our dream. Although I don’t know the mountains (I’m a midwest girl), I just about burst into tears when I see the beautiful rolling hills that God so beautifully made and purposefully placed me in when I’ve been away from them. Hopefully, God willing, we will be building on my husband’s family’s ancestral land sooner than later.
I can feel you love of the land and I love your willingness to work hard. I hope that comes for you and your family soon!
Loved reading this. Home is when I walk in the door and our youngest son’s dog, Ziva, greets us by running in circles!
Dogs make us feel so loved!
Growing up we lived in two different homes. My favorite was the old farm house on a hill overlooking a large lake and the mountains. My family moved shortly after I left home leaving me with only memories of my family home. So many of my older relatives are gone and all I have left are the memories of the times I spent at their houses. When I married, it was to a military man so there were many moves and many homes. There were a few it hurt to leave, but they were all places we couldn’t return to because they belonged to others. Our house in Colorado was the hardest because we owned it and had really made it home. We have been retired for many years and now have a farm house in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains with a lovely view of those mountains. We have been here longer than anywhere else, but the children were in college or their senior year of HS so it was never really home to our two oldest. It is home and I love it, but anywhere we can be with our children and their children will be “home.” Their company and love is all we need.
I think you’re right – it’s the people who make our house a home!
Hone is where my heart is with my loved ones and where I feel happiest. Home is a place to be myself and to have fun. Home is a place where you can pray and study the Bible comfortably. Home is a place to feel safe and have a refuge from all that can go on in life.
A beautiful definition of home!
I “know” the electric fence, I grew up on a non working farm but dad raised chickens and mom sold the eggs and we had a few pigs at one time but your memories on the farm are some of the same memories I have.
Hey Jessie. Home would be wherever my family is. And, yes, my heavenly home is sounding sweeter all the time!!! I have loved every home we’ve lived in. From apartments to mobile trailer, and on to 3 different houses. Each one our first realtor would show us houses that I couldn’t understand why they would show us them! And then with our new realtor brought us to the right one. Right away as I walked into the house it felt like home! Ones I’d think we would never be able to afford but our God is the God of the impossible! They became ours! Our townhouse we are in right now, when we walked it it had the same look and feel of the home we had just left. We made a offer a lower than the asking price as we knew our limit. There was someone else who had already made an offer so our realtor told us to write a letter to the seller on why we would like to buy her home. Long and short. She chose us and I guess the other one had made an offer larger than ours. But again, Jesus knew! And the story doesn’t end there. We had opened our home for a ladies Bible study because where it had been health reasons couldn’t be there. Well. The first day when one of the ladies walked in I heard her say,”This was supposed to be my house!!!” She was the other interested in buyer!