Dear Mom e-Letter
Remembering, Celebrating, Healing

Volume 1, Issue 5
There's No Place Like Home
February 24, 2006

Dear Reader,

It happens every time. Every journey back to northeastern South Dakota creates nostalgic moments for me. The endless prairie, divided by fences, trees and fields encourages my soul to come on in and relax just a bit. I smile, I laugh, I cry as feelings of life, love and loss return in this land where my parents, grandparents and great grandparents lived and died.

The journey of creating Dear Mom was like that. Every reading and re-reading, writing and re-writing became a journey of memories—the prairie, the family, the Old House and New. I smiled, laughed and cried as feelings became words that described, once again, the gifts and life of a woman of the prairie.

When Dear Mom was more than a manuscript but not quite a book, I returned to my home town for an event. It was my aunt’s 70 th class reunion. On my drive to meet her in Watertown, I realized the importance of my roots and connection to the land. I feel sturdy there, connected to a time that held values I have inherited and tried to make my own.

I love every place I’ve seen in America. Every time I travel to speak somewhere in America, I call my husband to describe the beauty, the museums, the people, and I enthusiastically say, “We have to move here!” I could live in many places, including cities. I love theatre, shorelines, mountains, lakes. I love the food offered in the Southwest and the South. The fish in Seattle, the chowder in New England, the burgers in the Midwest.

But we each have that special place, where deep down inside, we know it’s home.

It feels right. It feels strong. It feels like it was there before us, waiting to welcome us into the world, and it will go on after us.

That’s northeastern South Dakota. For me, the prairie of my ancestors is my home.

Where’s home for you? Where’s that special place where, if they don’t know you by name, they at least know which family you come from? And they can talk about the weather or Iraq or football….but they’d rather just know how you’re doing and how life is treating you? Where’s the place that you can count on the food still being the same, and the church services are on the same schedule they were when you were a kid?

It’s easy to take that place for granted. If you’ve lived there all your life, you can take for granted the people, the land, the heart. You might assume every place has the same thing—churches, stores, gathering places.

But it doesn’t. Because that place has your heart, whether you’ve lived there all your life or moved away and just get to return to visit.

Dear Mom was a journey back to that heart for me. I found anew that special place and my love for it. I miss the days of Mom’s sheets blowing in the prairie breeze. I miss the taste of food that came out of her garden—fresh, delightful and cooked to perfection. I miss the days at the lake when we could splash and cool off and feast on Mom’s fried chicken when we were done.

Memories like that make me smile. The journey back in time is a good one, and I take it every time I travel home.

Sharing the memories is even better. I’d love to hear about the special place you grew up in an e-mail. Where is “home?” And what are some of your favorite memories of that special place? And which memories are connected to life with your mom?

I hope you take some time to remember and celebrate memories like that. There really is no place like home.

njoy the journey!

Dee Dee