Robert Frost Wisdom

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." ~Robert Frost.

I never appreciated Robert Frost when I was forced to study his poetry in high school.  Still alive in my lifetime yet published in my American literature anthology for school, Robert Frost was a craggy-looking, white-haired old man, struggling to read a poem he had written for/at President Kennedy's inauguration ceremonies in the early 60s.  The sun was glaringly bright, and the wind was causing problems.  (They didn't have teleprompters in those days.)  What possible meaning could that ancient man's poetry impart to me?  I'd had to memorize one of his poems for class.  That was enough for me!

And now, all these many years later--dear God, how very many years--it all makes sense.  It makes enough sense that I forced my students to memorize two of his more familiar poems for class--poems that included lines I knew my kids would see over and over again in life.  I wanted them to know where they came from...what they meant.  The quote above didn't come from one of those.  So why am I writing about it?

When I first read the poem, "Death of the Hired Man" by Frost, it meant nothing to me.  Just another long poem that I had to endure for the sake of my English class.  But now?  Now, it is full of meaning!  "Home is the place where, when you HAVE to go there, they HAVE to take you in."  (Emphasis mine.)  Why would anyone HAVE to go there?  Nowhere else has the comfort and feelings of love as home.  Unless one lived a particularly traumatic childhood, home is home, even to criminals on the run.  Why would they HAVE to take you in?  Because at home, you are loved unconditionally.  It isn't so much about home as it is about relationships.

In my relatively nomadic life as a child in a military family, I learned to accept that home was wherever my parents were.  Or my grandparents.  When times got rough, I always sought home as a place for comfort.  And now that they are all gone, as is the farm that we all considered the home place, there is still home.  I have a niche carved at my sister's house, at my daughter's house...and, of course, in my house-on-a-slab.  I know that I have done my job because I think both my sister and my daughter know that they have a home here with me, too, if they need it.

I give thanks every day of my life that I have a home.  I give thanks every day of my life that I have a family that still cares about me.  I give thanks every day of my life for every day of my life!  I accept them for who/what they are.  They accept me, complete with all of my foibles and faults.  And that's what home is all about.  When I go there, they still take me in!