Home.

I will always have a home. I don’t mean the adult “need –to- pay -the –mortgage” kind of home,
I mean the home of my childhood.
I walked through wheat fields taller than me.
My friends were walnut trees in a neat grove (these trees could be castles with hidden rooms, wise old giant-friends with gnarled skin or sinister great owls ready to wrap leafy wings and carry me off through the dark).
I developed my love for pancakes with peanut butter and syrup.
I fought with a little brother – white-haired and stubborn.
I closed my eyes each evening after moonlit prayers with parents on whose own prayers I am built to this day.
A million things, greater than the stars are bound in me from home.
My bones, my soul were formed by this home of mine.
And I know, it is still there and always carried with me.

I think of these little ones.
I think of their home.
We began construction this September.
A rounded home – built without corners. No corners to alienate, no corners to hide.
Just curves. Curves like a mother’s hug, like a father’s protection.
What wonders will these children carry with them from their new home?
Do you remember home?
Do you know home now?
This home, this rounded home is built from tears, from fight, from belief, from research, from knowledge. This home is built from your hands and ours.
In this home will be Love.

For children who thought they were dogs, for girls who thought they were refuse, for victims who thought their time was done, for beauty ravaged by ugly violence, for the fathers and mothers of abolition who came before us, for our sisters and brothers who work in a breadth and width of belief in restoration. This home is dedicated.

May these children one day, look back at their home and realize it is always there, still carried with them, and in it they always have known Love.


Desirea