Friends from Home

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I was four years old when we moved from Duplin County to Savannah Road (although it would be several years before it became a paved road with that name). Back then, it was really just a long dirt path off Route 2 in Seven Springs.

Not long after we moved in, I wandered to the end of that road and met my very first friends: Kenneth and Lucille Sutton.

I called them Mr. Ken and Mrs. Ken.

Why? Because the nameplate on their mailbox read Mr. and Mrs. Ken Sutton, and in my not yet fully developed brain, that meant he was Mr. Ken and she was Mrs. Ken. So that’s what I called them, even long after I figured out how names and salutations actually worked.

Mr. and Mrs. Ken lived in a small white house shaded by tall, well-established pecan trees. I can’t recall what led me to their back porch that first time, but I remember vividly sitting at their kitchen table sharing an afternoon snack, listening to stories of long ago, hanging on every single word. I was mesmerized by the punch tin pie safe in their kitchen, and by the stack of News Argus newspapers in the sweet little den, from which they often read to me or with me during our visits. The front of the house held the bedrooms and a single bathroom, which couldn’t have taken up much square footage—but to me, it felt like a large, mysterious, dark wing I was content to avoid. I happily kept my visits to the kitchen, den, porch, and great big yard.

As a grown up, I sometimes wonder if they ever got tired of seeing my long, skinny legs and wild, messy hair skipping up their porch steps. If they did, they never let on. All I knew was that they treated me like one of their own—and I liked it very much.

Their children, grandchildren, and extended family came and went frequently. Somewhere along the way, Ms. Linda, Janet, Cindy, Arthur, David, Mr. Brent, and Lizzie (who was close to my age and from Chapel Hill, which to me may as well have been New York City—so she was basically a movie star) became my family, too.

I tasted my first(and last) persimmon at that kitchen table. A visiting relative from Florida brought them for Mrs. Ken.The only lie I ever told her was at that table on that day. When she asked if I liked it, her eyes full of hope, I lied. I didn’t like the persimmon AT ALL—but I LOVED her. So I said I liked it very much. That small fib resulted in a persimmon offering every time she got her hands on one. A lesson was learned that day!

Down the road a ways and around the corner lived my first friend who was my own age. Her name was Malena, and we went to preschool together at Mrs. Ball’s. She moved to Nevada the year after we met, and my little heart broke. But she promised to write, and she did. Inside her letter was a drawing of the tumbleweeds she had seen at her new house. I don’t think I’ve ever been so jealous of weeds in my life. I showed Mr. and Mrs. Ken the drawing, and they helped me draw a picture of the pecan trees in their yard to send back to her. I didn’t think the trees could compare to a real tumbleweed, but they suggested that she might like a little reminder of home.

If you’re from Seven Springs, you probably knew and loved Malena, too. She returned home again not too long after she left, grew up with the rest of us, and, like too many of our childhood gang of friends, went to be with Jesus long before any of us were ready to say goodbye. I’ve moved houses a dozen times since preschool, but just this past year, I opened a forgotten box of treasures and found a tattered envelope containing her tumbleweed drawing. A sweet reminder of home.

Mr. Ken passed away in 1985, when I was ten. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that Mrs. Ken was now a widow. Years later, as a teacher, I fell in love with the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The character of Ms. Maudie Atkinson always reminded me of Mrs. Ken. I envisioned the sweet little house belonging to Mrs. Ken when the book described the house where Ms. Maudie lived. I loved the book so much that I read every word of it to my students ( we once calculated that I read it cover to cover at least 87 times in my career).

Each time I read it, I saw Mrs. Ken in Ms. Maudie: the sweet, Southern widowed woman who took an interest in children—especially the rough around the edges little girl named Scout. But it wasn’t just her kindness. Ms. Maudie listened. She treated children like they mattered. She faced her share of hardship with grit and grace and carried on the best way she knew how. She was a neighbor, yes—but more than that, she was a friend. Just like Mrs. Ken was to me.

Time marched on, as it always does. I grew up, and Mrs. Ken grew older. In 1997, she went to be with Jesus. Had she lived, she would have held a seat of honor at my wedding. Her daughter made sure a piece of her was with me—I wore one of Mrs. Ken’s handmade handkerchiefs pinned inside my wedding dress.

So much life—and so much loss—has happened since those days at that little white house. I’ve been blessed with many dear friendships, but none quite like those first ones on Savannah Road.

After Joe passed away, I spent many tearful hours at his grave. I’d talk, cry, and wait for some sign that might bring me some comfort—a whiff of cigarette smoke, a dragonfly…just something. One day as I was leaving, I realized that Mr. and Mrs. Ken were buried just yards away, across the cemetery path. So I sat down at their headstone and had a little chat. I cried a little (a lot), rested my head on the warm stone, and for a moment, felt the long forgotten comfort of home. It became my tradition to visit them each time I went to Joe’s grave. Even now, I never lay my hand on that stone without remembering their house—and wishing I could be there one more time.

As a former English teacher, it’s no secret that I love words. I study them. I treasure finding a word I’ve never seen or read before. Recently, I discovered the beautiful Welsh word hiraeth (pronounced HEER-eyeth). It has no true English equivalent, but it describes a deep longing or homesickness for something lost—a time, a person, a home, a feeling—mixed with grief and nostalgia. Maybe it’s a longing for childhood, or for a place you left (or never truly knew). Maybe it’s the ache for a version of life that now lives only in memory. Or maybe it’s mourning, not just what was, but what will never be.

Hiraeth stirred something deep in me. I know this feeling. I just didn’t know it had a name.

A few weeks ago, I received a gift I’ll treasure forever. Mr. and Mrs. Ken’s grandson, David Maxwell, gave me a pen made from the wooden planks of the old pack house that once sat in their yard. When I held that pen for the first time, I closed my eyes and let hiraeth wash over me.

Oh, how I miss Mr. and Mrs. Ken!

They live forever in the fragile glass bubble in my mind called “home.” In that place, the roads are still dirt,  all the people I love are alive and well, and even when we are apart, we send drawings of tumbleweeds and pecan trees as sweet reminders until we see each other again. It’s a simple place, but a sweet one. Age doesn’t matter there—because love binds us all. And love, I’ve learned, is the one thing that truly lives forever.

In that glass bubble, Mr. and Mrs. Ken sit on their porch and wave as I kick up dust with my bicycle tires. Malena plays in her Grandma Pearl’s front yard, just across the field. My great Grandma Betty and Granddaddy Eugene sit under the carport down the road, shelling peas with my sweet Granny. Three rowdy boys—Jamie, Doug, and Joe—race down the road on bikes, motorcycles, horses, or maybe even as barefooted as a yard dog. The same Doug who once stole a cat from a church yard and presented it as a gift for me (my mama was not happy with either of us that day). The same Joe who later stole my heart.

Outside the bubble, one by one, those dear ones—Grandma Betty, Granddaddy Eugene, Granny, Mr. and Mrs. Ken, Malena, Mrs. Pearl, Jamie, Doug, and my sweet Joe— all slipped away. But inside, they live on.

Holding that pen, I realized hiraeth is not a homesickness for Savannah Road. It’s a yearning that points us forward—not backward. It’s a compass set toward the kingdom of Heaven. It reminds us that we are pilgrims, not settlers. It whispers that this world is not our home.

Hiraeth is hope. Without hope, hiraeth is just grief. But with hope, hiraeth is the quiet trust that one day, the ache we feel will be replaced by a love we cannot, on this side of Heaven, begin to comprehend. 

In my simple mind, though, I do try to imagine what that day will be. And in my mind, it isn’t so different from that glass bubble. Maybe the roads are gold instead of dirt—but all the people I love are there, alive and well. It doesn’t matter that some of us got there when we were very young, and some of us got there when we were much older, because we are all bound together by God’s love, and that is the kind of love that truly lives forever.  We will all be whole. We will all be home. 

And maybe, just maybe, those who got there before us still find subtle ways to remind us that one day we will all be together again. A long forgotten tumbleweed drawing. Catching a  familiar scent on the breeze.  A dragonfly where you normally wouldn’t see one. Resting your head on a stone warmed by the sun. The way a pen feels in your hand when you fondly remember the very wood from which it was created.

Revelation 21:4 says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes… There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

That place, my sweet friends, is where the path of hiraeth ends—not because we forget what we longed for, but because we finally arrive.

We finally make it home.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—

There’s no place like home. 

Love you all mighty much.

Ronda