To Lose One's Home

To lose one’s home.

This is something I’ve found myself thinking about a lot over the past few weeks.

It’s been brought on by the very real conversations happening right now about closing two of our neighborhood schools. And by the people I’ve spoken with… people who are feeling the sadness of losing a place that meant something to them.

I’ve met many who went to these schools as children.

Who sent their own kids there.

Who built parts of their lives inside those walls.

Some who still work there.

Generations shaped in a single place.

It wasn’t the building itself that shaped them.

But it was where it all happened.

The memories. The history. The imprint.

And that matters.

What’s surprised me is what this has stirred in me.

It’s touched a grief I carry, one that doesn’t show up the way it used to.

The loss of my own home… the one that looked like a grocery store.

That grief doesn’t live on the surface anymore.

It doesn’t flood in the way it once did.

It mostly stays quiet now.

But it hasn’t disappeared.

It rises when something calls it forward.

And this has.

The emotion caught me off guard.

It came out in a way I didn’t expect, quietly at first, then stronger than I was prepared for.

Today, during board comments, I spoke about how my heart is with the communities of Fawn Mountain and Point Higgins, because I know what it is like to lose your home.

And in that moment… it was right there.

My voice wavered.

My eyes filled.

I acknowledged it and tried to move forward.

But even as I read the date for the next meeting, you could still hear it in my voice. The grief hadn’t finished with me yet.

I had to pause, longer than I wanted to.

I apologized.

Did my best not to cry.

A tear or two slipped out anyway.

Then I made a joke.

People laughed.

And I gathered myself and kept going, composed again, the moment tucked back in.

Emotions are strange like that.

They come and go.

Sometimes we feel them fully.

Sometimes we push them aside so we can keep moving.

But when something is big, when it’s meaningful,

it doesn’t just disappear.

It waits.

Quiet. Dormant.Until something reminds it.

And then… there it is.

I don’t always think that’s fair.

But it is part of being human.

And feeling it doesn’t take away from my ability to do the work.

It deepens my understanding of what’s at stake.