In the final minutes of a recent episode of HGTV’s  "House Hunters," a show where couples set out with a real estate agent to buy a home, one happy couple, sitting on a couch in their newly purchased house, talked about how they envisioned raising a family in their new home.

As an Army brat and Army wife, the interview made me pause and consider how “home” means different things to different families. For military families, their itinerant lifestyles stretch the traditional description of home.

“Home is Where the Army Sends Us,” is a widespread expression in Army circles. But that doesn’t always wash with military brats.  

When a friend moved from Fort Bragg, NC to Fort Leavenworth, KS, her 4-year- old daughter surprised her months after the move by asking, “When are we going home? I miss home.”

Every military wife with kids has been in this heartbreaking spot. Military parents, like all parents, want their children to be happy and well-adjusted, to have friends, to thrive in school and to have a sense of belonging. Most military brats, myself included, have fond memories of life in the military -- thanks in large part to our mothers, who with each move created once again a new home for their families.

But home, for most people, is linked to nostalgia. It takes time to fashion new memories.

My mother always told me, “Home is where the family is. We’re all together.”
Her words fell on deaf ears.

“But I want to go home… ” I’d lament. Of course, I’d say the same thing each time we moved. As a kid, home is your house on the corner, the oak in your backyard, the park with the pond down the street and your best friend Jenny two houses down.

Most military kids experience homesickness from time to time, when they are in fact, with their family. For this Army brat, it took growing up, moving out and experiencing life’s pains and pleasures to truly appreciate what my mother meant so many years earlier.

Home is indeed a place where you are loved unconditionally. Home is where you feel safe and protected.  Home is where your heart is most happy.

Despite a lifetime of moves, these days when people ask me where’s home, I tell them, “Right here.”