They say “home is where the heart is”; which is a reference to your state of mind relative to a place. But I also think there is an actual place that your heart calls “home”. It may not be the place you were born or lived in for the longest time. It has more to do with some deeper visceral connection of the soul to time and space. For me, the place that my soul calls home is Knoxville, TN.
I was born and raised here from childhood and lived in a house within walking distance of Cedar Bluff Elementary School (when elementary school covered 1st-8th grade). There I started friendships that lasted through the high school years at Farragut High, undergraduate, and graduate school at the University of TN, and beyond.
I left Knoxville in 1985 and started a new professional life/career in consulting engineering in Gainesville, FL that lasted 31 years with the same company with moves from Gainesville to Orlando, FL in 1990 and Jacksonville, FL in 1994.
I got married in 1990 to a wonderful girl named Jennifer and focused on building a family in Florida over the next 33 years before pancreatic cancer took my wife away. We had three beautiful daughters (Hailey, Alyson, and Sydney). In 2005 we did a “Green Acres” lifestyle change and moved the family from the suburbs of Jacksonville, FL to a small rural town called Hilliard, FL about 50 miles northwest of Jacksonville - almost to Georgia. We bought a small 7-acre farm and started out with one horse. In 2019, we started fostering another teenage girl (because three wasn’t enough, lol) and adopted Jenna in 2021.
All this time, my parents stayed in Knoxville, living in the same house I grew up in in Belmont West subdivision. Over the years we would come “home” to visit, and I would always try to look up and connect with old friends on those visits. It’s amazing to me that so many are still here - either never left or left and moved back.
I have maintained relationships with some that I have known from as far back as second grade. There are some whom I have reconnected with after two or three decades of time. I have attended several of my high school reunions and we even had a gathering of friends from elementary/middle school. Who does that? Social media platforms have also enhanced connections with the past.
I have reached the point in my life where I have lived more years away from Knoxville than here. But this is where my heart calls home. There is something truly special about this place and the time that we spent here.
In addition to the people and relationships, for me, a large part of it is the proximity to my beloved Smokey Mountains. There is no place on earth that I feel more peace and connection to God and the universe than in those hills. I spent a big part of my youth and young adult life escaping to the mountains to hike and worship and commune there. I have always told my girls that this is where I go to recharge my “soul batteries”. Our family gatherings at my parents’ house almost always included a hike and/or memorable trip to our favorite picnic spot on the Treemont Creek or Black Balsam Mt in the Blue Ridge Parkway.
My mom died in 2017 at the age of 90, and my dad, who will be 94 in June, recently moved out of the house in Belmont West to a nearby assisted living facility. It has been over two years since I have been “home”. COVID happened and then my wife got sick, and I spent the next 15 months caring for her until she died on 12/5/2022. It feels both comforting and strange staying in the empty house that I grew up in.
Today, my dad and I drove to the mountains and walked the trail along Treemont Creek one more time and had our traditional picnic including homemade sourdough bread, Havarti cheese, grapes, a bottle of white Riesling wine, and some cookies for dessert. We enjoyed being together in that place, both of us reflecting on our blessings and our grief over lost spouses. I told my dad how thankful I am to have lived in a place so close to these mountains and for all the treasured memories from our family gatherings over these many years.
So, today, I am thankful for my “East Tennessee roots” in Knoxville. I am thankful for my parents who raised my sisters and I “right” and instilled in us a strong sense of family tradition and bonds that I believe have been passed down to the next generations. I am thankful for the teachers and friends along the way who were so instrumental in shaping me through the fires of childhood and youth. I am thankful for local Young Life leaders who invested time in my life in high school, which led me to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. I am thankful that even through the changes associated with growth and development that have occurred, I can still feel “at home” here when I visit (even though I may not recognize or be able to find many of the places I used to go). And I am thankful that I can still reach out and make connections with old friends who shared the same life experiences and who also call this place “home”.
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