Connie Burcham

If you ask 50 people what home means, or what home is, you will get 50 answers. But if there is one thing the pandemic has taught us, it is a lot more than four walls.

Sure, right now there is a whole lot of home improvement going on, and all the excitement that goes with that. Who doesn’t love the new look of a remodel, the smell of new paint and the feel of new carpet underfoot? Everyone loves looking for a new house, too.

And as we begin to walk out of the shadow of the virus, residents are getting closer to normal, catching up on things that were let slide during times of uncertainty. No one can focus on new windows when they are unsure their jobs are secure.

But now, now, with the sweet scent of spring on the air, we all want something new, better and different, whether that is in the house or in the yard.

So let’s look at what home means. 

It is the comfortable place where you can relax, be yourself, unwind. It has become a place where you can work in your pajamas if you like. 

Home is the place where you brought your baby home from the hospital. It is where you spent sleepless nights with the same newborn, walking, rocking, dancing a million miles to slow songs, in the hope the baby would sleep, or at least stop crying.

It is the spot on the carpet where the new puppy was too excited and scared to wait one more minute before he went tee-tee. It is the little spots on the wall behind the stove from making spaghetti for the baby who is now a preschooler.

Home is the place where you took care of your spouse after surgery, the kids with the flu, and your own parents as they aged. 

Home may be a building, but more than that, it is the memories from births and deaths and weddings and graduations. It recalls Christmases past and proposals, special birthday meals and back yard barbecues. 

Those memories may be affiliated with a ranch style or two-story, old or new. That isn’t the only thing, though. It can and does for many mean a place. It could be a camp up the North Fork, it could be the stadium at University of Wyoming. It could be anywhere in the shadow of Heart Mountain or the McCullough Peaks. It could be the ocean, or a river. Maybe it’s Yellowstone. For those who are part of the military, serving abroad, home is the U.S.A.

Home is the place you miss, long for, think of with a mix of joy and sorrow, can’t wait to see again.

While all these things, these nebulous definitions, can be related to a structure, there is more to it than that.

Home, the pandemic has taught us, is the people and memories we cherish, no matter where they happened. The people are our home. Home isn’t a building. Home lives in your heart.