I remember the first time I learnt what the word “home” meant, and how that differed from the word “house.” When I was in the fifth grade, I was quizzed on the difference and at that time, I was unable to answer the question. Looking back, however, this should have been my answer:

A “house” is something concrete – something that may be built from bricks and cement, and something whose value can be measured quantitatively in terms of square footage and the location in which it was built. A “home,” however, is something quite different. It has less to do with quantitative value, but rather, the feelings that are associated with it. After reading the blogs of Lorraine, John and Sandra, I noticed that they, too, associated the word “home” with feelings and emotions of rest and comfort, along with family ties.

The first common theme that I noticed was the theme of family. As Lorraine put it simply, “home is where my family is.” Sandra continues on to mention that home, to her, was where she could be with her mother, sitting together with her at a dining table eating dinner. John, too, speaks of his stories that he associates his home with: from his dog, whom he watched grow from a little puppy to an old dog, to his dad teaching him how to drive a car.

The second common theme was the feeling of rest and comfort. All three students associated home as not only being with family, but alongside them experiencing a sense of belonging and comfort that cannot be found anywhere else. Sandra wrote about moving away from her home in Vancouver for four months in the summer, and of how she missed her home and the feeling of security that she had when within the familiar walls of the home that she grew up in, at ease in the company of her mother.

Finally, it would be impossible to miss the largest theme of all: to Lorraine, John and Sandra, “home” is an emotion, not an inanimate object. In each of their posts describing what home meant to them, there was an unmistakeable emphasis on the way that they felt. Any references to specific physical features of a house were neglected, for the meaning of “home” to all three of them is entirely based on their own emotions, feelings and things that they experienced growing up, rather than on a specific location or description of a place that could be measured subjectively and quantitatively by any stranger.