Last week, we took my father's remains home to Kansas, to the town where he had grown up, where his great-grandparents had homesteaded, and where I was raised as well.

When the children of Israel, exiled in Babylon, longed for their homeland, the prophet Jeremiah told them that God had a different plan for them. Build homes and live in them, he said. Plant gardens and eat what you harvest. Raise children and grandchildren. Invest yourself in the wellbeing of the community you inhabit, for in its prosperity lies your own.

Those words were the model for my father's life. My parents left Kansas at about the same time I left for college; none of us returned there to live. Dad ran banks on the West Coast for 25 years, until his poor health forced him and Mom to move to Colorado so that I could care for them, and no matter where he lived, he worked hard to enrich that place.

Always, though, he longed for home. Even though he could see 13,000-foot peaks every day from his front porch across the street from mine, when he lifted his eyes for comfort, clarity and peace, the low hills around our Kansas valley were the hills he wanted to see. Although he fished in the best trout rivers of North America, a warm, muddy prairie stream was his home water. I understood completely, because that place is the home of my heart as well.

 My brothers and I had invited the few of his old friends who are still living to accompany us to the cemetery. We hoped, for our mother's sake, that some would attend; in our own communities, funerals are often sparse affairs. We had forgotten that small-town residents consider little to be more important than observing rites of passage; we had also forgotten how many people we had known back then.

A preacher's funeral duties often seem to include lifting up to God the grief of all the mourners, but another duty is to face into the sun on their behalf, so that they need not. At 10 in the morning, I squinted at them, glad I had memorized the words I needed to say.

Just as I prepared to welcome them, a pickup pulled up behind the group and two tall men climbed down and removed their feed caps. I didn't recognize them, but that wasn't surprising; I hadn't recognized most of the others either, even those whose faces I could see clearly. The men spoke the Lord's Prayer clearly; as my brothers lowered our father's urn into the hole the workmen had dug far too large for its purpose and added earth until it was just barely covered, I could hear their strong voices singing a hymn familiar to all of us. 

I blessed our gathered friends and urged them to join us for "dinner" — the High Plains noon meal — and conversation, and then I turned away to gather the pages from my husband's music stand so that he could carry it and his guitar back to the car. My younger brother helped my mother into his car and took her away. My other brother, who has closer and more current ties there, was shaking hands and receiving greetings. We had agreed to return later to clean up.

As I turned to leave, I noticed that the two men had quietly taken shovels from the back of their truck and were carefully filling the grave. Thinking they were township workers, I approached to thank them, but when they looked up, I realized they were classmates — 35 years older, with lined faces and somber smiles replacing the carefree grins of adolescence, but in many ways still the same. These were the boys I wanted to notice me way back then, and I still didn't know what to say to them. Trying to find a way to thank them for such a personal service, I stuttered something like, "Oh, wow."

One of them opened his arms to me, and then the other enfolded us both.

"You're one of us," one whispered. Suddenly, despite not having touched them since a long-ago high school prom nor even spoken to them since graduation, I was crying for all I had lost and both of them were patting me and murmuring the right words.

I cannot imagine that 35 years ago, they would have been comfortable touching each other, nor would they known what to do with a sobbing woman, but life has a way of teaching us what we need to know. One handed me a clean, pressed white handkerchief. I blew my nose loudly and we all laughed. For a moment, I thought, "If I'd married one of these guys, my dad could have come home to die." Then I thought that Kansas boys still smelled familiar, like Brut and clothes fresh from the washline.

Later, we talked about our families. Each was married to his second wife, and all four wives were local girls. I had noticed on earlier trips that marriage in my hometown and my husband's was like musical chairs; little outside blood finds its way in. Those who marry outside tend to move outside. But I had also noticed that everyone I encountered was married. In a small town, relationships are important, and living alone is hard. 

We spoke proudly of our children, and the gulf between their lives and mine slowly took shape. My children are far-flung college graduates; theirs have mostly stayed "home," as they did. They struggle to earn a living in a town where a really nice house might cost $100k; both my income and the prices where I live are multiples of theirs. They were surprised that I was able to speak to a group; their wives would never attempt that. We have kayaks; they have bass boats. When I urged them to come visit and offered the use of the mountain house, one spoke of a bad bout of altitude sickness. I told them that in Kansas, I felt like I was swimming through molasses.

"Cold molasses," one joked, and we all laughed. The Kansas wind is colder than anything I experience at 9,000 feet.

Some things never change. People were dispersing, and I, the eldest daughter, was the hostess. They joined my husband and brothers in carrying out the trash and folding up the tables while I packed up food, and then we said our goodbyes.

"D'ya think you could ever come back?" one asked. 

That would be hard. I've grown, and I wouldn't fit neatly into the space I left, but there, I still know who I am. My history is there; my people are there. I had forgotten what it feels like to really belong somewhere, to depend so closely on the prosperity of the community as these men and their families do. Maybe we'll buy a house there, on the off chance that someday we might live in it.

Could I go back? I think maybe I could, and be enfolded as if I'd never left, and for a few hours there, I really, really wanted that.