Home Is Where The Heart Is

From the “Love Shack” at Tybee Island, Georgia --- In visiting with our friend Sue by phone here at the island a while ago, it dawned on me as to the answer to the question: “What is it about Tybee Island that makes you like it so much?”

As I was telling Sue, for some reason I have never really felt like I had a “home” where I could be “just me” and not worry about what someone else would think. All my life I was expected to be the best at whatever I did, was to keep my head under the radar, and stay afloat.

I have always felt I was under intense scrutiny because of the various very public positions I held in government and the corporate world.

Living under the microscope can and does make you at least think you might be paranoid now and then. Every move you make can and often is criticized. This can and often does make you feel “unloved” and unappreciated for who you are.

No don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t that my parents didn’t love me. My Dad certainly had problems showing that but my Mom – well, there was never a doubt about the fact she loved her son.

I strived to become independent quickly in my life to “escape” the scrutiny of my parents and my community and at 19 years old was married and settled into a routine of work and school at Murray State University.

Independence is a hard thing to wrestle with I have found in these past 59-years. All people whether we like it or not are at the best interdependent on each other for love, work, interaction, and conversation. Yet, no one could say that I have not strived to be independent.

I recall in a relationship that was very meaningful to me a young woman saying, “I will never depend on anyone but myself.” Although that would be the same attitude I have harbored all these years in my personal and professional life honed by “Leland’s Laws” 1) Trust no one 2) Assume nothing 3) Triple check everything – the reality is that as humans we need each other.

That brings me back to Tybee Island and the dog park.

Who would have thought that I, of all people, would have become a “dog park addict” and a "Tybee-ite” so quickly; well, perhaps the reality is that it wasn’t that quick – we have after all been coming here regularly 20 years now – but to admit that my life has been enriched by the various characters I have met here – many of whom have become dear friends – is quite the admission for an old curmudgeon like me.

My grandfather, whom I have idolized and probably romanticized more than he would care for, always said that you could judge a man’s (or woman’s) character by how they treated dogs, children and their elders. He would be proud of many of the men and women I have met and brought into my circle of friends through the dog park. Needless to say, not all but the vast majority of the folks that visit there meet or exceed the criteria of Papaw’s character test. And so it was today that Sue and I shared our reasons for loving this island and its many characters.

I am finally at “home” here in my life even if it is just inhabiting two bedrooms, one bath college-like apartment with two dogs and the wife.

It has been a very long time since I felt secure with my situation and myself, there are many reasons for that and yet I finally feel I have arrived.

It is the realization perhaps that security, comfort and the love of friends is an organic process that as it changes either matures and grows more comfortable and meaningful or left to its own design without our effort withers and dies.

Strange as it may seem, I always thought I was “born” into the wrong family.

Perhaps this feeling has fostered in my life the need to “build my own families” with my own “brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers” of my choice. As Kay recently pointed out to me, perhaps I am more comfortable and at ease with my “extended family” than my few remaining members of my birth family.

It has been over the years the many “Dads” and “Moms” and the many “brothers and sisters” that I have adopted and that even to this day I am in touch with – that have comforted me in my times of need, encouraged me in my times of despair, and loved me when I had trouble loving myself.

It is here on Tybee Island that my “adopted parents” – Jim and Ann – also “parents” of Shadow – comfort me, shelter me, inspire me and provide unconditional acceptance and love.

And so it is here at this island that friends (and their “children”) like Sue (Ace’s Mom), Glenn (Marley’s Papaw), Miss Vivian (Sister’s Mom), Miss Nancy (Rocky’s Mom), Tim and Allison (parents to Lucy), Kim (Cole’s Mom), Chris (Roxie's Dad) and our dear friends and landlords Vince and Junie (Tobe’s parents) reach out to us and welcome us back. It feels like I am coming home finally.

It is said that people long to be at home and that your home is whatever place you long to be.

“Home is where the heart is.”

And that my dear friends would be Tybee for me.

Love, peace and grace,

Dr. Darryl