Opinion: Family, friends steal hometown attributes

If home was only a geographic location, and you have been away for a while, you probably can’t go back and find home. But that depends on what home may be.

It is said that “home is where the heart is.” If that’s true, home exists within and is not necessarily a place in which to return. My hometown is Springfield; however, growing up, my hometown was El Dorado, Kan. So much has changed through the years that it is no longer the place I once called home. It would be foolish to expect it to be unchanged.

For reasons unknown to me, I seem to be stuck in a fit of reverie, in search of a more profound meaning of home. I keep coming back to the notion that home is where the heart is. My heart is where my family and friends are.

My point is that rather than in a town and a house, home exists when we are with special people.

Recently, my wife and I visited with friends and family in El Dorado. At one point, we were with my sister and a few old friends. I managed to throw cold water on a pleasant experience. I became so ill an ambulance was called to take me first to the local hospital and then to a heart hospital in Wichita, Kan.

Once in the hospital intensive care unit, with needles and IVs in place, I must have lost track of time, but there in the room were my wife, sister and our daughter, who must have ignored the speed limits between Springfield and Wichita. I learned our son was ready to come, if needed.

Also in the room were a couple who had followed the ambulance on both its trips. Many years ago, I was the best man at their wedding; he was the best man at our wedding. He and I first met in kindergarten.

Somehow, a call must have gone out on an old friend’s network. Numerous friends from our school days visited. We are talking old friends. One former school chum, who has taken up writing poetry, stopped each morning and left a poem at the hospital front desk to be delivered to my room. Another special friend, an artist, brought a magnificent painting of a Maui sundown he planned to present the next time we were together.

Once out of the hospital and at home, the Kansas friends continued to call and write. Springfield friends and family were quick to welcome me home. I’m sure that the various medicines and hospital procedures played an important role in my recovery, but the family and friends surrounding me were the best medicine of all.

This notion of mine that home is where family and friends are came to me when someone commented that it must have been uncomfortable being in a hospital away from home. I realized that although I wasn’t happy about being there, with friends and family all around, it was not only tolerable, I felt like I was home.

It’s obvious that friends are more than casual acquaintances to me, and close family ties mean members are tied to each other.

Lending a biblical prospective to my musings, Proverbs 17:17 says: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” Assuming brother can be defined as family, this bit of biblical wisdom is right on. Family members should be there to help when needed. The saying can still apply if the roles of the two are reversed. Real friends are there in time of adversity and to be called family means loving at all times.

I truly hope that everyone has friends and family who are steady during the good times and the bad.

I’m aware that the home I have described may sound like a nonsensical bit of semantics. On the other hand, if it’s true that home is where the heart is, and your family and friends are genuinely important to you, listen to your heart. It might tell you that you are home when they are around you. That just might be conventional wisdom.

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.[[In-content Ad]]