Recently, I made what could be the last, or at least one of the last, trips to my hometown. My parents have made the decision to move from the town in which I was born and raised to another city. While it makes sense for the context of their lives, it also means leaving behind a place my family has known for literally the entirety of my existence. While many of my friends moved from one house to another for a variety of reasons, I was one of the few that remained in the same house from birth to the time I graduated High School and moved away to college. It wasn't a perfect house (does such a thing exist?) but it was ours. It was the anchor on which our lives rested. It was the place where my siblings and I ran through the woods and buried our beloved pets. It was the place that I learned about the Milky Way Galaxy and how to play basketball. It was the place where my friends and I played every day throughout the summer and where I learned about grandpa passing away. It was the place where we opened up presents on Christmas and hunted eggs at Easter. It was the place my parents created for us to live and to be a family. Maybe it was the perfect house after all.
We are not the only family who has had to say good-bye to a significant place in their lives. That is simply part of the human experience. It can be hard, and rewarding. It is complex as the entire spectrum of emotions come crashing together. Change is nothing less than loss, and loss is always grief. What follows is just my way of reflecting and dealing with such loss. I am excited for my parents to move into their new future, as scary as it may seem, but the loss is there and must be addressed. So, if you are going through such a loss, I hope this helps, even if just a bit.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy taps her heels together and says three times, "There is no place like home." Suddenly she is transported, or more likely awakened, in her own bed in her own home. The long journey and her companions (the Tin Man, Scarecrow, and Lion) were all there with her as if they were never gone. She awakens with a new appreciation of her home and seeks to no longer take it for granted. Suddenly the imperfections are diminished and the blessings are highlighted. The journey helped change, not the homestead, but her heart and view of the farm. The land of Oz became the catalyst for a transformation of the heart.
I think that a lot of people relate to this movie because we all come from somewhere. We are concrete beings, which is why positive and negative feelings may be encompassed in a physical space. Our brains store memories based on how we feel and where we were. This is why so many remember where they were when they heard about the events of 9/11, when they got engaged, or anything else of significance, both positive and negative. Physical space becomes a second or back-up storage space for our memories. So, the more around the physical space we are, the more alive the memories remain.
All of that is why leaving physical space can be so devastating. I know of a woman who recently lost her husband and was forced to move to a new city to be near one of her kids. In a matter of two weeks she had to leave behind her home of 40 years, her church of 50 years, and her city of nearly 60 years, all while still grieving the death of her husband. So, in her nineties, she experienced tremendous loss because all of those memories were stored in all of the physical spaces she is no longer around. She might as well have moved to a new planet, everything was just as foreign. As so many people will recognize, if all you have left are your memories, those tend to fade without the reinforcement of the environment in which they are stored. In other words, without visiting the settings of your memories, it won't be long before you have trouble remembering what the setting truly looked like. This is why we make monuments and landmarks--to make explicit the connection between memory and the physical world.
Throughout scripture, this is demonstrated time and again. Moses was given the 10 commandment on a mountain (Exodus 20) and hence the mountain became a sacred space for the Israelite people. When the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, though it took decades, the people dedicated themselves to rebuilding it (Ezra and Nehemiah). When Jesus was "transfigured" on the mountain, Peter wanted to build some dwellings (monuments) there to commemorate the event. In 1 Samuel 17, when God saved the Israelite army from certain defeat at the hand of the Philistines, Samuel set up a stone and named it Ebenezer as a reminder of God's actions. There is nothing wrong to want to hang onto place. The question, though, is how do we hold onto the place of our memories while moving forward in a healthy and genuine way?
1) Take something with you from the old place. Bring a rock,a leaf, a piece of art work, a photograph, or anything else to the new space with you. Let it have the burden of storing all of the memories it can. It won't be able to carry all of the memories of course, but it might hold more than you think. Before you bring it to the new space, hold it in your hands and recall as many memories as you can. These will be the memories you assign to the artifact.
2) Don't take everything with you to the new space. The more the old space invades the new space, the lesser the new space will be. When we don't know what to do, we do what we know. When that fear and anxiety of the new space emerge, and they will, you will want to abandon the new for the old. If you take everything with you, that fear and anxiety will only be stronger.
3) Write a letter or make a video for the old space. This may sound corny, but write a good-bye letter or make a good-bye video. This is less about letting a house know how you feel and more about giving you the practice articulating your feelings and memories. I am always amazed at what is buried in the deep crevices of our mind. Trying to express them, exposes them to us. Try it, you'lll like it.
4) Share the memories with others who experienced them with you. Nothing is more healing and calming than to know others share with you. Your family and friends are going to be the closest in understanding. They were there; they can help keep the memories alive for you. They can laugh, cry, and smile with you. If you do that in a new space, it is even better.
5) Live in the new space. In the book of Jeremiah, there is an ancient letter written from the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Israel who have recently been taken out of their homeland to live in a foreign land. They are distraught and uncertain of their future. Jeremiah is writing to them to encourage them. He doesn't tell them to fight in order to revolt and return home. Instead he tells them to live their lives, to marry and to have children and not to fight, "But to seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." (Jeremiah 29:7). So, live in the new space, carve out a future that will one day be as meaningful as the old.
It is no wonder that the Land of Oz was so surreal. Flying monkeys, wicked witches, and trees that throw apples create a unique world. In some ways, the Land of Oz needed to be anything but normal to be transformative. If the uneasiness you feel makes you uncomfortable, it may be a good thing. You may be traversing your own Oz, complete with a feeling of other wordliness. Things may seem weird or foreign. I encourage you all to follow the yellow brick road for the journey is necessary. Take it one step at a time, companions will come alongside you, and in the process you will both have a renewed appreciation for where you come from and for where you are going.
