Writers Beyond Borders

Home Is Where the Heart Is - A love for family

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This theme about home is very important to me. I wrote more about love than about home, but it is almost the same for me. Soon my husband is going to Afghanistan for six months. I know that those who take risks and go into the night need home most of all. They should know that they have a home with light inside, somebody who waits for them and supports them, someone who will meet them with love whatever happens.

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“It is so good to return home,” I think to myself in the Russian airport as I see my mom’s smiling face. “It is so good to be home,” I understand when my husband meets me in Edmonton after I visit Russia.

Where is the place that I call “home”?

I remember when I went to my grandmother’s in Ukraine: the apple orchard around her small house, the jasmine bush near the fence, the lake in summer.

“A house is beautiful not because of its corners, but because of its pierogies!” repeated my grandmother as she put an amazingly tasty dinner on the table.

As a very little girl, I learned there the magic of everyday life, how to create peace in the family, how to be keeper and heart of the home. I learned also how to support each other, how to be strong in difficult situations.

After that I dreamed about my own small house with a garden where I could read books and look at flowers. The lot that belonged to my parents was twenty kilometres from our apartment. It usually took two hours to go there by bus. I did not have time for reading – I had to weed, water plants, dig, plant, and harvest.

The four of us – my parents, my brother and I – lived in a small two room apartment in the city. In spite of all the difficulties of life, my parents created Home, where I wanted to return. Home: where everything, even routine and boring housework like washing floors, was done with love and for loved people. Whatever was outside, our home was shining with love, warmth, and light. In these years I understood that home is the scene of love created by two people.

I got married and moved to Canada. For a long time I could not get used to the different traditions and way of life; I could not find my place here. When my husband bought a house for me, we made our first garden. One time I asked him, “will we plant a garden at every place where we live?”

“Yes!” my loved man told me.

I cannot tell which home is closer to me. The apartment in Russia with my mom’s smile where I spent my childhood? The house in the Ukrainian village so dear to me as a five-year-old? Or here, in Canada, where I play a new role of wife and loved woman?

I sit in my garden looking at flowers I planted myself. I feel the aroma of bread in our bread maker. I look at how my cat – in Russian tradition, the symbol of a cozy home – walks through the lawn. I understand that despite all difficulties and problems, I am at home. With my husband, we create our home together, and I want to pass this feeling of “home” to our future children.

– Natalia Bukhanova