My daughter has been away for 8 months now.  A really lovely time of long sleeps and mornings walks.  Months when I have been able to eat when I wanted and where I wanted or not at all.

Months when my heart has rarely pounded in the day to day of life, rarely been kept awake by my mind doing that “I hate that this is so difficult” early hours conversation with itself.  In short, I have had a life and very grateful I am too. 

But in all that time, I still thought that here, where I am right now, typing in a room across the hall from my daughter’s bedroom was “home”.  Well of course it’s home.  Parents provide homes for their children.  That’s what we do.

Except my daughter thinks otherwise now. Now home to her is her new home, her Care Home.

“That’s my real home now”. Cue for this Mother to have a jolt of disbelief…how can that be?

Mmm. Yes, I want her to live there.  It’s great for her.  It’s great for me.  But do I want her to call it “home”? We invest so much in that name, that concept, that feeling. Whole films have been made, books written about “home”. Darn it, aren’t most wars about “home”, “my” space, “my” place so I can thrive and support “my” people….No wonder I felt put out…

And the reality is that she calls here “home” too, when she is there, in her other “home”. She has two homes. She is growing up, and away. Her care worker explained that she couldn’t call two places “home” if she didn’t have a strong sense of identity. So that’s good.

Two homes it is then. Home and Home.