talk – benandsteve.com

Coming home after a long journey does not always mean our hearts have caught up with us. Sometimes the ordinary things waiting at home—a cup of coffee, a familiar chair, a loved one nearby—remind us just how precious everyday life really is.

August 29, 2026

Good morning, my friends.

Pour yourself a cup of coffee and stay with me for a few minutes.

man walking on sidewalk with coffee in disposable cup — _{^{Photo by Drew Anderson on Pexels.com}}

There is something strange about coming home after a long journey.

You walk through the same door. You set your things down in familiar places. The coffee pot is sitting where you left it. The dog seems perfectly satisfied that everyone has finally returned to where they belong.

Everything looks normal.

But somehow, you aren’t quite the same person who walked out that door.

Over the past several days, Steve and I traveled roads filled with memories. We saw family, visited familiar places, said goodbye to my mother in Oklahoma, and then pointed ourselves west and began the long journey home.

Now the suitcases are being emptied.

The laundry is finding its way into the washing machine.

The mail is being sorted.

The refrigerator is reminding us that apparently groceries do not magically restock themselves while you’re gone.

And slowly, ordinary life begins again.

But I’ve been thinking about something this morning.

Maybe ordinary life doesn’t really begin again.

Maybe it simply waits for us.

The coffee cup waits in the cupboard.

The chair waits beside the table.

The neighbor still waves.

The morning sun still comes through the window at approximately the same angle it did before we left.

And somewhere in all those ordinary things is a quiet invitation:

Come back when you’re ready.

Grief and memory have their own timetable. They don’t care much about schedules, calendars, appointments, or the number of miles between Oklahoma and Arizona.

You can unpack the suitcase long before you’ve unpacked everything you carried home inside your heart.

And that’s all right.

There is no requirement that we immediately return to being exactly who we were before we left.

Life changes us.

Goodbyes change us.

Reunions change us.

Standing in a cemetery surrounded by people who cared enough to simply show up changes us.

And sometimes a long stretch of highway gives us enough quiet to realize just how much.

So this morning, I am not asking much from the day.

I have coffee.

I have Steve.

I have Otis nearby, undoubtedly supervising everything and making certain no suspicious delivery trucks invade the neighborhood.