I still mother them….

There is something about getting older that changes the way you think about home. When I was younger, I thought home was a place. A house. A street. A kitchen table where everyone gathered. But life has a funny way of teaching you things you never asked to learn, and somewhere along the way, I realized home stopped being a place and started becoming people.

I have spent 41 years at the same office. Forty one years. I started there when I was nineteen years old. I graduated college there. I got engaged, got married, had children, got divorced, got remarried, became a grandmother, and in the middle of all of that, buried both of my children. Through every single chapter of my life, those people were there.

We did not just work together. We lived life together. We watched each other get married, have babies, become grandparents, lose parents, survive divorces, illnesses, heartbreak, and the kind of losses that knock the wind out of you. We laughed together, cried together, celebrated together, and somehow managed to keep showing up for one another through all of it.

I remember the day I got divorced. I came home scared, sad, embarrassed, and not having the slightest idea what my future was going to look like. Sitting on my doorstep was a bottle of wine from Dr. Gioffre with a note that simply said, “You got this. You’re stronger than this, but don’t know it yet.” At the time, I thought divorce was the hardest thing I would ever survive. Life would later prove me very wrong, but I never forgot someone believing in me when I had trouble believing in myself.

Then came the chapters that brought me to my knees. Losing Vincent. Losing Gab. The kind of heartbreak no parent should ever know. The kind of grief that settles into your bones and changes the way the whole world feels. The kind where even breathing feels heavy some days.

And that is where my village showed up. The angels that walk this earth. The friend who sends a text at the exact moment you need it. The flowers left at your door. The angel painting sent from Turkey. The succulents. The two braided plants because someone remembered I lost two children. The sarcastic cups that somehow make you laugh when laughter feels impossible. The bath kit with a note reminding me Vincent would tell me to go take a tub and wash away the sadness. The people who ask, “How can I support you?” and actually mean it.

I think one of the things we miss most when life changes or people are gone is the safe space they created. The kind of people where you can talk about the dark parts, the messy parts, the things that hurt too much to say out loud, and nobody looks away or tries to fix it. The people who let you say the hard things out loud and somehow make you feel less alone in them.

But what I have learned is the silence matters too. The people who become home are the people you can sit with in complete silence and it never feels awkward. Nobody feels the need to fill the room. Nobody expects anything from you. Somehow just sitting there feels comforting. And then five minutes later, you can all be laughing around a table until your stomach hurts. Both somehow feel equally safe.

We have all been through life together in one way or another. We have held space for heartbreak and healing. For grief and joy. For laughter and tears. We have watched each other survive things we never imagined we would survive. Somewhere along the way, we stopped just being coworkers or friends or people who crossed paths. We quietly became home for one another.

That is what home feels like to me now. It is not always four walls and an address. Sometimes home is the people who make the hard conversations feel safe, the silence feel comforting, and the laughter feel healing. The people who remind you that when life falls apart, you do not have to carry it alone. Sometimes home is simply the people who stay.