For the past nine days I’ve been packing to move me and the Ohio portion of my family’s belongings back to our home in Durham, North Carolina. There is no doubt in my mind that, although I grew up in South Florida, Durham has been my home for some time. Before coming to Cincinnati ten and one-half years go, I’d lived in Durham for more than nineteen years. That is the longest I have lived in one area in my life, exceeding South Florida by a few months. It is where Lisa and I welcomed our son into the world and finished raising our Florida-born daughters.

In early August of 1989 I earned my library science degree from Florida State University. Lisa, our girls, and I had moved to Tallahassee a year earlier, for her to earn her bachelor’s degree and me to attend library school. My masters program was a year long, and Lisa’s program would be another year. Finding paying work in my field meant leaving the family at least for a while. That was not an easy decision, and I know that it was very hard on Lisa and our girls.

At the beginning of September I arrived in Durham to begin my job as a reference librarian at Duke University’s School of Law. The girls joined me for the following spring semester, and then returned to Tallahassee to be with Lisa during her first year as a graduate student. In the summer of 1991 they all joined me in Durham. Our son, Micah, was born in 1994. Nearly fifteen years later he, Lisa, and I moved to Cincinnati as I took on the directorship of the University of Cincinnati Law Library. Our daughters remained in Durham, where they soon married their respective loves.

After living in Cincinnati for seven years, three years ago Micah and then Lisa returned to Durham. Micah terribly missed his sisters and friends, and he needed help with day-to-day living. Our first grandchild was on the way, and Lisa was anxious to be a part of his life. I knew they needed to be in Durham, but I did not have the option of changing jobs at the time. It’s been a tough three years of separation for us all.

This coming Thursday, thirty years after leaving my family in Tallahassee to take a job in Durham, I return to Durham to rejoin my family. Amen.