The House That Love Built

“The house that love built.”  Ohhhh….yes, there is love here.  Love that is flowing through every hallway, and twist and turn of the stairwells.  There is warm light flowing through the white shutters on the windows.  Hallways that are linked like a maze, but never feel hopeless, because the light is happy and warm.  The oak hard wood floors and muted light gray walls are accentuated with bright colored patch work quilts, paintings, and black and white photos of smiling children’s faces.   The GIGANTIC kitchen is filled with dinner nightly.  Meals are delivered or made by gentle and kind groups of people.  Tonight a running club showed up car by car with containers of food, so that each family here doesn’t have to worry about making a meal at night.  It feels like love, and a little like home when you come downstairs and smell a hot meal. 

There are different sitting rooms, filled with comfy couches, and overstuffed chairs that swallow you in.  Some are leather couches and sectionals, some covered in neutral and calming upholstery.  There are many coffee tables, because this is a house filled with people who need plenty of coffee (and tea, although I align much more strongly with the coffee crowd).  The main floor has two patios, one with a basket ball hoop, and one with multiple tables, and a soothing fountain and chairs for lingering in quiet conversations or thought.   When a guest walks into the front door, they arrive into a lovely living room with a fire place and fish tank.  If a guest is blessed, they will arrive on an afternoon when “The Governor,” a giant aged basset hound therapy dog is visiting.  And if a guest is really blessed, they will witness a child curled up with “The Governor” receiving pet therapy.

The child’s play corner is bright and happy, filled with books and toys for toddlers and young children.  A mural of a tree is painted along the wall opposite a giant chalkboard.  Happy forest creatures in the mural bring warmth and charm to the little space that I would have loved as a child.  I love that space as a 41 year old woman.  Simply knowing that such a happy corner exists in the world is lovely.  Just across from the toys and children’s book shelves are shelves filled with books and movies.  In this house there are moments to be filled and these shelves hold the keys to some wonderful time passing. 

White doors lead to 28 different family rooms, 28 rooms filled with people who are here because something has gone wrong.  This is not a house for vacations.  Although, it would be the best Air BNB that anyone could find.  No, this is a house of refuge for families who are on journeys they never expected to take; families who have children who are suffering.  I would be a wise person to bet that almost every momma or daddy or grandparent in this house would give their very lives to alleviate the pain and struggles that their beloved children are facing.  I know that I would.  These rooms are filled with those who are able to show a brave face despite fragile hearts.  They are filled with hopes and prayers and uncertainty and tears and love; love that will leave everything else behind to travel far from home to fight for the lives of their children.

Perhaps the hardest aspect to describe of this house that love built is the feeling that fills up the halls.  There is weight here.  This is a place where I have seen total strangers cut through all the small talk and dive right into the deep of a conversation, because they are treading water in the deep end of life, and there really isn’t room for the precursory polite niceties.  There is the weight of lives living in the deep end.  Maybe I am only imagining it, because I am also in the deep end.  Our lives forever altered by one fateful night, thrust into a world of broken bodies and broken hearts.  But I don’t think that I have imagined the heaviness and depth that is here.  This is hallowed ground. 

The beauty of the people who are here is undeniable.  We are in this house that love built, needing to feel loved as we are all traversing the deeps.  My heart needed to be here, and not only because I was missing my oldest child (which is COMPLETELY true).  I needed to be here to experience the touch and voice of another mother and father who are walking along side the pain and struggle of their child.  I needed to come to this house that love built to know that we are not alone.  I see the familiar lines of desperation across the faces of my fellow moms.  I feel the acceptance of fellow warriors fighting with all their might.  Oddly, the weight of the air in this space is comforting to me.  It’s almost as if we have finally entered a space in which we all speak a similar language.  Not every path to lead us here is even close to the same, but each one of our paths did lead us here. I pray that while we are here, while Naomi is here, we can be a source of hope, and receive the hope and love that is given in this house that love built.