"I Made It! I'm Home!"

My little Jana, all of 14 years old, lives just across the park from me. This evening shortly after 11 o'clock, when all the guests had left and the kitchen was clean, she headed out into the dark in the direction of the welcoming lights of her home with nothing but an orange segment of a moon and the underwhelming rays of my ageing Blackberry, held at arm's length as I stood on the TH's front verandah, to illuminate her way.

She chattered away and whistled companionably at a decibel level easily audible to me the whole way: "Yikes! I never know if I'm going to bash into a tree out here! Keep your phone on! Ha-ha-ha!! Yuck! I think I ran into a spider web ..." Her light pink skirt glowed in the dark, but no more so than her vibrant spirit had shone all evening long as she worked away determinedly, even staying a few minutes after her shift ended to bleach the sink.

Finally she yelled out across the anonymous dark expanse, "I made it, Karyn - I'm home!"


She went inside and the porch lights were dimmed.

But that little exchange of perhaps a minute and a half reached something in my heart and mind tonight. As I sat on the verandah a little while later enjoying a perfect evening - no bugs, no wind, no dust, no noise, no vehicles, no sense of urgency - I was still smiling, still warmed.

And I thought, I'm home!