The MEANING of HOME By Tessy Edokpolor

I remember the first time I found myself glancing at my surroundings in a pale constructed building. “Where am I?” I wondered. The building was empty, with no objects in sight. Cluelessness had struck me, leading me to sit there on the wooden tiled floor. I spotted a mouse and watched it as it crawled into its dorm, while my parents laboured to move all our belongings inside. It took some time, but this building is now what I call my home. With a beautiful garden. Where we grow new crops and flowers every spring and summer. This building is my storage of beautiful memories. It is where I can be me. Ever since we moved to Canada, my family and I have been moving from house to house. But, it is not because of the structure I call the building my home. Nor is it because of the toys and electronics that I had loved to play with within each house. What makes each house I move into, my home is the love, joy, and laughter that is shared between my family and me every day, right here in this house. But my house is not the only place I consider as home. My country is home to me, so is my school. When the word home comes to mind, We think about the house we live in, the food we have and the money we have. That is why we fear the word homeless because we do not know what the word means. Though homeless people may not have a house, they have a home. This home could be their country and the street itself. They might have a friend, like a dog or a bird, and the joy they share on that street makes that street their happy home. They will feel safer as a result. It would not matter if it rained because they would have each other. Think about it like a bird. It does not have a fancy home, and it gets its food on its own. It has its friends and family. If he gets cut off from his friends and family one day, it will have nothing to do, so it will just lie there. The most important thing to the bird is his family and friend, not his nest/house. Why is this, you may ask? It is because it loves its family and friends. Now that it has nobody to share joy and laughter. It has no home. To define it to you, a HOME is a place where you share joy, laughter, and love among one another. That can be anywhere, your school, the street, and even in the wild. Make it your own. It is your home. It will never grow old and will only continue to grow, just like the people inside it.