Home. Lessons learned from living in a small town.

“Small town”, those are words that can carry with it a lot of weight. It can mean so many things to so many different people. In our very early years, we lived in many different houses. Our parents were young when they got married and they spent their early life hopscotching around building a life for our family, finally settling on Holic Ave for the remainder of our teenage years.

The hopscotching was a result of following a job, a very normal reality for the people from our part of the world. But moving away from “home” was too much for our parents, our mother in particular, so we made our way back to the Island where my family was born.

Eventually we ended up living in one of the bigger towns in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, but relatively speaking it was a very small place. There are those, especially ones growing up in or near big cities with access to seemingly “everything”, who would say that being from a small town was a disadvantage for us. In our case, they would be wholly mistaken.

They say it takes a village to raise a child and that was what we had, Holic Ave was its own little village. A place where neighbours built friendships that would last a lifetime. Where both joy and sorrow were shared emotions. The bonds that our mother formed while living there taught us many lessons.

ALWAYS LISTEN 

In our busy world, we are often just sitting there waiting for our turn to speak. Take the time to listen to others around you. You will not only learn from what they have to say but you can better understand who they are as a person. That is how you become a true friend.

LAUGH

One cannot count the hours of laughter that occurred around our kitchen table. Our house was the gathering place and oh the stories those walls could tell. It was a safe place to tell your story, to ask for advice and have a good laugh. You know the kind we mean, the one where the tears are rolling down your cheeks. Isn’t there a study somewhere to support how good that type of laughter is for your health.

CRY

We mentioned a safe place, well creating a “village” gives you a place to be vulnerable and even the strongest among us need that sometimes.

TRUST 

It seems in short supply these days. Media/social media has made the world so small. There are so many stories that frighten us that we need to find/build a place to trust. Building friendships, the kind that our mother built among her people, are invaluable.

Our first post garnered many responses from the friendships our mother built in the places she called home. They are the people that not only shaped our mother’s life but ours as well. They taught us strength and courage, what true friendship looks like and that in a world where headlines can terrify, there are truly good people out there.

An impromptu milling frolic around the kitchen table on Holic Avenue.