Building the House of Love and Laughter

I love working quietly on meaningful things—building beauty with intention, especially when it’s rooted in love. Years ago, I started writing quietly. Sharing words only inside a writing group that helped me to refine the craft and trust myself. I am still working on both.

I didn’t set out to build a platform or brand—I just wanted to create a place for my words to land. I wanted to build something rooted in meaning—something that could hold faith, family, home, hope, and healing all in one place.

I wanted to hide when I first hit publish.

Sometimes, I still do.

I thought I would be writing about my daughter’s hearing loss journey.

And I have. But there was more. There is more to the story. The story was still being written and I had so much to learn.

Maybe it’s about how we find hope in suffering.

Maybe it’s about where Christ has met me in it. Where hope and miracles were found like a rainbow fills the sky after the most violent storm.

Six years ago, with Sophia by my side, we designed and shared the first symbol of House of Love and Laughter.
We drew the simple outline of a house—just a few quiet lines assembled on a page. We added a door, a cross at the center, a roof for shelter, and little bushes in the front with the words love and laughter woven into the hedges.

It was simple, but it said everything. And revealed more as time went on. The first letters are my initials and I didn’t even realize that at first.

I often write about tending and sowing, weeding and pruning—because so much healing over the years has been found in getting down in the dirt. In paying attention to what’s growing, what needs to be cut back, and what simply needs more time. So the hedges made sense. They were never just decoration. They were a reminder of all that takes root when love is planted with care.

But the little logo was more than a drawing. It was home—a safe shelter.  It was how we were rooted. It was the cross at the center of our lives. It was the door where others and the Lord could enter. It is heart.

And yes a name. A beginning. A place for the words to land.

Building

The idea to write had been burning in my heart for much longer—waiting for the right moment, the right nudge, the right kind of courage to bring it to life. I had been following many writers for years wondering if I could do it too—sharing words in my heart. 

I was part of a writing membership community since 2015 attending a retreat and a conference in hopes of discerning my next right thing in writing. But I was grateful for those in the writing community who helped to encourage me to take my next steps. Some of those writers have become friends and encouragers on this writing journey. 

I followed and was inspired by home-style bloggers, moms, wives, women who shared beauty in the everyday, and a few who wrote books about faith, family, home, life, and hope. 

Long before that, knowing how I always loved to put my thoughts on paper, I planned to study journalism and communications, but that plan was taken from me—a decision I allowed someone else to make for me. 

I’ve regretted it in many ways, but like so much of life, I’ve come to see how God can bring good out of the pivots we never expected. Just like when my daughter’s hearing loss did, Just like when cancer—my husband’s brain cancer—entered my life. Just like when loss did. 

But the words still would pour out of me in journals upon journals. The words still do now. 

At the time, I could have started a blog about DIY projects or how I decorated my house or threw a themed party. People told me I should. But I already knew plenty of people doing that. I could’ve shared gardening tips—how I planted seeds, pulled weeds, and grew veggies and flowers in abundance. I could’ve posted recipes or written about parenting and marriage. I was often asked to.

But none of that felt quite right. At least not then. It still doesn’t. I think I was made for something else. Now I spend more time trying to make sense of what God wants me to share.

I’ve often been asked to share more about family, parenting, and marriage—and maybe one day I will. But for so long, I was still living in the heart of those seasons—raising children, loving Jon, and learning what it meant to walk through both joy and suffering with grace. And the truth is, it’s hard to speak with authority when you’re still in it. We can’t be experts in the very things we’re still learning. Some stories take time to tell.

After 25 years of marriage and 33 months of caregiving, I walked Jon home to heaven. In the midst of that long goodbye, I also lost my mom. And not long before that, my dad. Grief, layered and relentless, opened new places in my heart—places where I began to understand more deeply what it means to show up for the people we love, especially when life doesn’t look the way we hoped.

Our pain doesn’t disqualify purpose. It can deepen it.

Being a full-time caregiver gave me new eyes—eyes that see what matters most, what we can let go of, and what it really means to show up for the people we love. To really show up. Not just in the ways that feel comfortable or convenient, but in the ways that are actually needed.

The truth is, not everyone showed up the way we hoped and needed. Some fought against what we asked, believing they knew better. And while intentions may have come from love, it still hurt. Hard times reveal a lot. They teach us who listens, who leans in, and who quietly walks away.

And yet, grace remains.

In time, writing became a place to hold words about our journey through brain cancer… and what it means to walk someone you love all the way home. It’s now a place to share the heart of grief and widowhood, and to honor the other losses I’ve carried along the way—while still trying to find hope and courage to keep moving forward each day, even when life is hard. 

Because it is hard—especially without the person with whom you built a life, a house, and a family still with you on earth.

The House of Love and Laughter and those sweet little lines became more than a name. It became a mission and platform for new chapters. A way to acknowledge the sacred in the sorrow, to speak truth in tenderness, to create things that carry meaning.

And so today, I’m remembering that sacred little moment in 2019—when a mom and daughter created something together that would one day carry our story, our faith, and the quiet strength of love. That little logo I love.

If I learned anything from my dad’s passing back in 2018—and it revealed more to me than I ever could’ve imagined and maybe prepared me for the loss of my husband—it’s this: we cannot wait for life to come to us. Not in the sense of chasing after what we want, but in the quiet courage of paying attention. Of showing up for others with respect and dignity. Of listening for where God is calling. Of saying yes to the gifts He’s placed within us.

Because the gifts we carry were never meant to be buried. They were given to us uniquely—for a reason. To glorify Him. To draw us—and maybe someone else—closer to the heart of the Father.

I wrote my first blog post, Writing Is My Cake, as a tribute to my dad in 2019 just after the logo was created. He always told me I should write that book. He knew how much weaving words meant to me. It was also a love letter of sorts—words I carried in my heart for the people I love. But I’ve since learned something hard and holy: those closest to you may not be your reader. They might read your words, but that doesn’t mean they’ll receive comfort from them. Sometimes, your honesty holds up a mirror—and not everyone is ready for what it reflects. 

Still, I Write

Still, I write. Not to force understanding, but to honor what’s been given. To offer what I can, with love. Because words, when rooted in love and truth, matter. 

My writing has shifted, grown, refined, changed in voice and cadence, but not in heart since that blog post about cake for my dad and the one when I first shared about Jon’s brain cancer, the one after his stroke and the one where I shared he was born into eternal life, maybe even the one (or several) where I held space the last few years without my husband and father to my kids and how grief and loss change you. 

I am still trying to find my voice in writing, that makes sense as I am still trying to find myself in this devastating loss. But I will continue to write until I find the voice and chapters where God is asking me to show up with heart, truth, goodness and beauty. 

Most days I don’t know what I am supposed to do about the words and the stories, especially those that are tucked deep inside. But God does. And Only in His Time.

So today, as I look back on that sweet little design (thank you Sophia for your patience with me) and how far this space has come—from a quiet website to a shop filled with beauty, meaning, and memory—I’m grateful. For every word shared. For every order packed with prayer. For every heart who’s found comfort, joy, or hope here.

I will remember those simple lines that built a house—the House of Love and Laughter. What began as just a logo—a simple outline of a house with bushes marked love and laughter and a cross in the doorway—has become something far more. It holds words that are a matter of the heart…from my heart to yours.

What are you being called to build with what you’ve been given—even if it’s taken twists and turns, detours, and long ways home to get there?

If this reflection stirred anything in you…
If you’re sitting on a dream or holding a story close—maybe this is your nudge.
Not to build a brand. But to begin.
To say a quiet yes.
To use what you’ve been given and trust that it matters.

“In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
—Ephesians 2:22

This one’s for my dad. His 6th Heavenly birthday is Sunday. He always told me I should write that book. And maybe this is how it begins—by building it one faithful word at a time.

That little logo was more than a drawing. It was home—a cross at the center, love and laughter in the hedges, and a door where others—and the Lord—could enter.”

Heather lebano