NO Pl AcE lIKE HOME

Think growing up means getting out? Time to rethink things.

It has been years since I officially left, driving down the long gravel road that led away from where I grew up.

As I left for college, that drive — my last as a permanent resident of “home” — didn’t seem momentous, but it was.

And I have been back, sometimes for weeks while I was in college and sometimes for days just to visit. But home is never the same after you’ve left.

Two of my sisters still live nearby, one a few miles away and another a few hours. They see each other frequently. Their kids play together. They talk. They get along. They watch out for each other and for my parents.

My parents still live in the home, which today is remarkably like it was back then, with lots of rolling green lawn and shade trees and places to sit and think. began seemed to have passed.

Way back when I left for college, I didn’t look back. I had big plans, and like so many things that are overly familiar, leaving home wasn’t traumatic or cataclysmic. It was, I thought then, just inevitable.

I thought about all of this as I read our magazine’s story this month about multigenerational families living next door and down the street from each other. Having grandma living nearby to see the grandkids, and having dad next door to help repair the leaking toilet aren’t sexy aspects of a successful neighborhood or a family. But more than rising home prices and expensive strollers, those family bonds create a value for the families we talked with that can’t be duplicated.

The very idea of having family members scattered a few minutes away, something that at one time we may have laughed off, offers a certain charm and quaintness and priceless peace that’s hard to describe.

6301 Gaston, Suite 820, Dallas 75214; FAX to 214.823.8866; or e-mail to rwamre@advocatemag.com.

And as I moved first to Chicago and then to Dallas, with a stopover in Florida for a few months, I didn’t look back, either. My mom and dad would, from time to time, point out that sometimes people decide, as life rolls on, that where you started is a good place to wind up.

But by then, I had married a Texas girl, and we had a couple of Texas kids, and I was working at a Texas business, so the time for a permanent return to where it all

EDITORIA l PH/469.916.7860 publisher: RI c K WAMRE /214.560.4212 rwamre@advocatemag.com managing editor: KERI MIT c HE ll /214.292.0487 kmitchell@advocatemag.com senior art director: JYNNETTE NEA l /214.560.4206 jneal@advocatemag.com assistant art director: Jul IANNE RI c E /214.292.0493 jrice@advocatemag.com editors: MAR l ENA c HAVIRA-MEDFORD /214.292.2053 mchavira-medford@advocatemag.com c HRISTINA H u GHES b A bb /214.560.4204 chughes@advocatemag.com designers: J EANINE M I c HNA -b A l ES , lARRY Ol IVER , KRIS S c OTT contributing editors: JEFF SIEGE l , SA llY WAMRE contributors: SEAN c HAFFIN , SANDY GREYSON , bI ll K EFFER , G AY l A K OKE l, E RIN M OYER , GEORGE MASON , bl AIR MONIE , E ll EN RAFF, RA c HE l STONE web editor: cO ll EEN YAN c Y /469.916.7860 cyancy@advocatemag.com photo editor: c AN TüRKYIlMAZ /214.560.4200 cturkyilmaz@advocatemag.com photographers: RObERT buNcH, MARK DAVIS, MOllY DIcKSON, cHRISTOPHER lEE , SEAN McGINTY interns: AlEX KNESNIK, lAcEY TEER

Had I known, as I drove down that dusty gravel road, what I know today about the importance of family, I might have thought twice about turning the key in the ignition. Life would have been different, but it wouldn’t automatically have been worse, as I no doubt would have told you back then.

As this month’s stories tell us, home and family — somewhat abstract terms to many of us — don’t have to be.

ADVERTISING PH/214.560.4203 advertising coordinator: J u DY l I l ES /214.560.4203 jliles@advocatemag.com advertising sales director: KRISTY GAcONNIER /214.560.4213 kgaconnier@advocatemag.com display sales manager: bRIAN bEAVERS /214.560.4201 bbeavers@advocatemag.com senior advertising consultant: AMY D u RANT /214.560.4205 adurant@advocatemag.com advertising consultants: c ATHERINE PATE /214.292.0494 cpate@advocatemag.com l ISA A lTHA u S /214.292.0961 lalthaus@advocatemag.com NORA JONES /214.292.0962 njones@advocatemag.com bRANDI S TRINGER /469.916.7864 bstringer@advocatemag.com

MADE lYN RY bc ZYK /214.292.0485 mrybczyk@advocatemag.com

PATTI M I ll ER /214.292.0961 pmiller@advocatemag.com classified manager: PRIO b ERGER /214.560.4211 pberger@advocatemag.com classified consultants: SA llY A c KERMAN /214.560.4202 sackerman@advocatemag.com S u

/469.916.7866 sclark@advocatemag.com