I’m driving to see my child and grandsons, and I stopped for the night in the town where my husband grew up – in Kentucky.

Kentucky will always mean home for me now.

In March when his mother passed away in Indiana, we were there moments after she stepped into eternity.

Mom was born and raised in Kentucky. She grew up on a farm here.

After a couple of other moves, Mom and Dad landed in this small town. They built a house and owned a farm, and raised their children here in Kentucky.

My husband lived here in that home they built from the age of 18 months until he graduated from high school…and it continued to symbolize home until it was suddenly auctioned off eight years ago, abruptly closing that chapter of life.

Mom was Kentucky, through and through. She loved living in the country, in this small town.

For years, we came to the farm every Christmas, and every Fourth of July. We sat on the porch and watched her beloved cardinals. We ate wonderful meals she made, with jams and jellies homemade from fruits of her garden. We cheered with her for the UK basketball team – she was a fanatic, and had her own television in the kitchen, so she could watch every game.

She loved her kids, and adored her grandkids – all of them. This was comfort for my kids and I, who married in to her wonderful love. She would grasp my hands and sincerely thank me for loving her son, for she knew the destruction he had endured. Every single time she saw me, she thanked me. I would respond to her “thank you for raising such a wonderful son!”

When we came to Indiana after she died, it felt like Indiana feels to us…surreal. Like we are interlopers. Not quite right.

Mom had people who loved her in Indiana, but they moved her there from Kentucky when her memory was starting to fray around the edges. It was obvious living down a long driveway, miles from help or neighbors, just wasn’t safe for her anymore.

They got a nice house in a nice neighborhood in Indiana, close to her daughters.

That home wasn’t associated with Mom for us. The longer she lived there, the more she incrementally disappeared. We visited her a year before she died – she was still herself during the day, but at night she sundowned, retreating to the Kentucky of her girlhood.

She was buried in Indiana. Our grief has been stunted, and delayed. We miss her every day, but at her funeral, we left more troubled than settled.

This afternoon, I drove to the old Kentucky home of my husband’s childhood. I stood next to the massive magnolia at the end of the driveway, staring up at the house where Mom lived. The house she decorated with angels and Christmas trees year round. The home that welcomed us all, year after year.

I stood, shaking, and looked at the trees Dad had planted, having gathered them from the riverbank decades ago. They towered over me as they circled the drive.

I wanted to go to the back yard, to see the porch Mom spent so much time on…but another family lives there now. I sat at the end of the long driveway, taking it all in.

I cried all the way back to the hotel – I feel Mom here. We have so many years of happy memories with her here.

Everywhere I went today reminded me of a happy memory with her. Today was a bittersweet gift, a release that has been looking to escape.

I know she’s in heaven, and that comforts me.

Kentucky always will mean Mom to me.

Thank you for that, Mom.