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Home is the center and the circumference, the start and the finish of most of our lives.
So said Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the renowned sociologist, novelist and lecturer.
Home has been on our minds a lot, as we’ve mentioned on our blog already, the reality, the notion, the importance of a place that, more than just about anything else, shapes our lives and the people we become.
In recent times, we’ve been thinking a great deal.
Thinking about the home that, like Charlotte back in the late Nineteenth Century, we’ve made here in Rhode Island.
Thinking about our friend Chris Tibedo and the home he doesn’t have, less than 30 miles up the road in Providence.
Thinking about the Twa people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the precious place that they’ll soon be able to call home.
Thinking about another acquaintance, a special little man still prominent on our radar, and the loving home that he has never been able to experience.
Until now, that is.
The little man in question is called George Johnson.
You might remember him from our Team George blog or this might be the first time you’ve encountered him. It matters not.
Either way, George cannot fail to touch your heart, as he has done ours, and those of thousands upon thousands all over this Earth.
You see, George is a one-year-old in the UK who has spent his entire life, thus far, in a hospital bed, a rare medical condition meaning that he has never known home and all the wonders it holds.
It could be a tragic tale, but for the courage and resolve of the tenacious toddler and his courageous parents.
For them, despair has not taken a grip.
Tireless in their efforts to raise funds, awareness and support for George and others like him, their charity, Team George, continues to go from strength-to-strength.
Their reward is here.
You see, for the first time, George has come home.
Home to his safe place, home to his haven.
Home to his parents, his sister and the family’s dutiful dog.
Home at last – for a short time, for sure – but home nevertheless.
Here in Saunderstown – where Chris Tibedo’s tale has, to quote President Obama, stirred our conscience – we appreciate the significance, all it means for George and the people caring for him.
You just have to look at the Team George Facebook page to see that, in this, we’re far from alone.
Home is where the heart is, or so the saying goes.
Like little George Johnson and his touching tale, home and all the things it means is something that connects us all.
Be it our appreciation of it, Chris’ longing for it, the Twa people’s anticipation of it or George’s enjoyment of it, it all boils down to the same thing.
That, to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, where we love is home, home that our feet might leave but not our hearts.
It’s the same the world over.
Here in our studio – in our home – we’d like to wish George and his nearest and dearest well, may your time together at home be a long one, may it be a time to cherish and an experience to savour.
To Chris Tibedo, and everyone else on the streets of Providence and beyond, we haven’t forgotten you. Keep believing, that place called home will be yours one day.
To the Twa people in the DRC, it’s coming, that homeland, that place craved ever since 1972.
To ourselves, let’s continue to appreciate and treasure our home and all that’s good in our lives.
Let’s think about how fortunate we are.

We are all connected.

2 Comments

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