I went to the wake for the mother of a high school friend on a butt-ugly, stinking hot September in 2011, back in a town I’d learned to hate decades earlier. I left with something more.

Susan and I weren’t close enough to be confidants, but she was close enough to be more than just a face I used to know, staring out at me from a yearbook page. We lived about a block from each other, rode the same bus to school and a group of us would hang out at her house on occasions. Sue’s mom, like the mothers of my other friends—Margee and Betsy—were kind, lovely women whose houses provided sanctuaries from my tumultuous existence. I went to honor her memory, not to fulfill any obligation.

Rosemary or “Rosie”, as we all knew her, died a few weeks after she’d began having difficulty breathing which progressed to gasping for every breath. The doctors diagnosed primary peritoneal cancer and started chemotherapy, but one morning she woke up unsteady on her feet. She fell into a coma a short time later; a CAT scan showed a massive stroke from which she’d never return. She was 81.

Rosie’s life had been well-lived. She married her husband in 1949 and they were together for 55 years, until he passed away in 2004. They raised five children who have all done their parents proud. Sue became a veterinarian, something she’d wanted to do since high school.

Rosie was a friendly woman with a smart sense of humor. A few of us had gathered at Sue’s house one evening during our high school years and the talk inevitably turned to sex and Vaseline. Without missing a beat, Rosie said, “After five kids, who needs Vaseline?” We were astounded someone’s mother would say something like that because it sure embarrassed us. (Years later I would discover the joys of annoying my own kids with “TMI.”)

There was already a line of people when I arrived at the funeral home. By the time I left it was out the door and down to the sidewalk. Rosie had many people in her life who loved her and would miss her dearly.

A collage of pictures from Rosie’s life stood on an easel in the corner, summarizing eight decades in a brief moment. The most poignant picture was one I’ll never forget: Rosie standing behind her oldest daughter, preparing for her wedding.

I talked briefly with Sue’s sister-in-law, Mary Jean, and Mary Jean’s mother; then I sat next to Margee. We chatted for a while and tried to identify people we knew from high school as they joined the line, but some of their names eluded us. They had all stayed in town and, as far as I could tell, they were happy with their lives.

I reflected on Rosie’s life and then on my own. I drove around town and took pictures of my past: the bowling alley and the hospital where I had worked; the school where I attended eighth grade and had my first girlfriend; the empty lot where our house once stood. I rode along the rural roads where I used to bike, remembering the relative peace of being alone and the chaos that waited at home.

Forty years have healed the wounds of adolescence. The ugly scars from then have faded into those of fine leather. I hated the place when I left and couldn’t get away fast enough. Years of living in the suburbs, however, has made me yearn for a small town in which to retire, the ultimate irony.   One person’s godforsaken acre is another’s paradise and, while I wouldn’t move back—there are far too many painful memories of my past life—I’m no longer inclined to disparage the places others call home.

We spend our lives looking for the place where we belong. Some find it early; some have to search for years or decades. Others never find it because home is more of a feeling within than a physical location.

I found my home when I stopped looking so hard.