A Heart's Home - Prologue

I don’t remember any sunsets before I came to Texas.  In Indiana, they must have all been some unmemorable shade that escaped me somehow.  But out here, in the midst of pine woods and rolling hills, the sunsets are beyond anything in the rainbow.  Beyond anything I can recall during my short lifetime. 

When the cloud cover is just right, the rays of sun slice through and paint the sky with bright pink and purple streaks of glorious color.  When the clouds are few, the sun burns like a huge orange fireball as it settles itself lower and lower over the horizon, showering the dry grass and thin pine trees with a hypnotic shade of burnt peach until the shadows stretch themselves out like long black pencil marks on a page of brilliant parchment.

The well-worn saddle leather beneath my thighs creaked and groaned as Maggie shook her head, prompting a musical jingle of her bit and bridle.  She let out a huge sigh of boredom and shifted her weight from one hind foot to the other, signaling to me clearly that she wasn’t nearly as impressed with the setting sun as I was.  I rubbed the velvety neck absently.

“I know.  Just a few more minutes.” I told her quietly, “It’s almost gone.” 

My grandmother used to say that every heart has a home.  For the longest time after coming to Texas, I believed those sunsets were a sign that I was home.  That my heart had found its place in this world and that no man on earth could wiggle his way into my restless soul and steal me away from the place my heart had found.  But I was young and didn’t realize the complexity of my grandmother’s words.

“Some people think they’ll find that home in a certain place or with a particular person,” Nanny would say quietly, “But it’s often right in front of you.  If you’re smart, you’ll build up that home using the relationships of those you love and those few friends who never let you down.”

We would frequently have these talks on her back porch when the weather was good.  It was screened on three sides and kept the bugs away, while still allowing the fresh air to come through so she could feel inspired while painting.  Sometimes she preferred for me to visit on Saturday mornings, close to sunrise so she might capture the colors of the early morning on canvas.  She liked to hear me talk while she painted, although she did interject her own thoughts often enough to be a real part of the conversation.

On some mornings, the cold breezes of an Indiana winter would be too much for her fingers.  Her arthritis would act up and we would sit inside by the fire in her den drinking hot chocolate and talking about funny stories that happened years ago.  Sometimes it was about my father growing up.  But mostly she talked about her life as a young girl growing up on the old farm in Lebanon, Indiana.

On those cold mornings, I would sit on the floor and she would wrap a thick blanket over my shoulders until I got warm enough.  Then she would sit in her blue and yellow plaid armchair there by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate and talk about the past with a bright twinkle in her gray-blue eyes.  I visited every Saturday until she passed away in her sleep after eighty-nine years of bringing joy to her family and friends.

The sun had set.  With the subtle guidance of my reins, Maggie turned towards home.  Back at the house, Mary would be busy preparing dinner.  And I was always there in time to set the table and help her if I could.  I was never much of a cook.  Nanny would often smile at my silliness in the kitchen and then shoo me away to find something useful to do.

I was eighteen.  Without Nanny or school or a boyfriend to hold me there in Indianapolis, I approached my father about going to Texas to stay with my Uncle Mark and Aunt Mary on their ranch.  They had attended Nanny’s funeral and brought the idea up during the wake we held at our house in Carmel.

Having visited the ranch a half dozen times in my childhood, I thought I knew what to expect.  I also happened to be one of those forlorn girls who harbored an undying longing for a horse of my own as I was growing up.  And the ranch had always been a wonderland to me.  There were horses everywhere.  And the ranch house itself was a haven of shiny dark-panel flooring, thick-cushioned old suede furniture and the largest natural stone fireplace I’d ever laid eyes on.  It was also a house that glowed within from the warmth and love of the couple who’d created it.

Mark and Mary had met overseas.  She was the eighteen-year-old daughter of an electrical engineer from Manchester, England.  He was a nineteen-year-old Army medic who’d been stationed originally in Germany and was on his way home to Indiana for leave with a brief stopover in London.  Sometimes fate shines on us with the brilliance of a perfectly cut diamond.  And shine it did on the two of them as they met for the first time outside the gates of Windsor Castle.  She was there with a girlfriend to finish researching a paper on fifteenth-century English royalty.  He was there out of simple curiosity about the place.  Both of them were there for different reasons.  But each came away with a single golden impression that would remain with them for the rest of their days.  And a pure love that would eventually bring the two of them together under the vast Texas sky to build a dream that would sustain them both until death.

It occurred to me after Nanny’s funeral that it seemed right for me to be moving on after her death.  While Nanny’s passing was a harsh blow to take, I kept remembering her thoughts on death.  She didn’t want anyone to grieve for her.  She believed that she’d go to heaven where she’d meet up with many of the loved ones from her past.  So she made it a point to tell me often in those last few months that when she did pass that I shouldn’t feel sad.  That remembering her fondly was the best thing I could do to get over missing her and that doing what I could to find my heart’s home would be her greatest wish for me.  And that’s what kept the darkest part of her loss from swallowing me up those first few days.

Part of the ranch house came into view between a small grove of pines on the left side of the trail.  There was no smoke from the chimney, but the evening chill hadn’t settled in quite yet.  I knew that Mark would probably get the fire going right after dinner.  March in mid-Texas sometimes brought warm afternoons along with moderately cool evenings.  On cool nights, with a little prompting nudge from his loving wife on my behalf, Mark would bring in the firewood and kindling and start up a fire so we could all sit around it in our pajamas after dinner and talk about our day over steaming cups of Earl Grey hot tea.

Those were moments that I knew would stay with me.  I would always associate happiness with a roaring fire, something warm to drink, and the conversation of loved ones surrounding me.  And I knew that once I left the ranch to move on again, I would need a home with a fireplace and a cozy chair beside it so that I might continue that treasured tradition with future loved ones.