When Folding Guest Towels Feels Like Love and Home
Sometimes the house feels too quiet, like it’s holding its breath. That’s usually when I reach for my pencil—between folding the piles of guest towels, catching my breath between loads of laundry and moments of remembering.
I keep writing because it’s how I breathe. Because when life cracked open, words became the thread that helped me find my way through. Writing helps me remember what’s still good, still growing, still worth tending—even when grief won’t let me forget how I arrived in this moment of searching for joy, beauty, and hope.
It was the night after the kids left for college again when I found myself standing over the guest bed, weaving words in my head, pencil in hand, surrounded by half-folded towels and piles of freshly laundered sheets. The hum of the washer was the only sound in the house.
Sometimes I wonder why I keep writing. Then I remember.
When I put the ideas I weave in my head onto paper—in cooperation with the Great Author—I’m reminded that words can heal. They can heal me, and maybe others too. Because Jesus loves stories. He so cleverly and effectively used parables to instruct, to give hope, to reveal His love for us, and to teach us how to love.
He keeps writing my story. I keep writing for Him. A story of belonging, of loss and rebuilding, of folding guest towels and finding grace in what remains.
Maybe that’s why I keep returning to the theme of home—because it, too, is a story God keeps writing in us. A story of belonging, of loss and rebuilding, of folding guest towels and finding grace in what remains.
Home is where we live the words we can’t always find, where love takes shape in the ordinary, and where healing often begins in the smallest acts of tending.
Home is where we live the words we can’t always find, where love takes shape in the ordinary, and where healing often begins in the smallest acts of tending.
Heather Lebano
This week, after a full house and a heart even fuller, that theme has stirred even more deeply. I’ve been writing between loads of laundry—folding sheets and towels, catching my breath after a weekend that brought the hum of home back to life. These small snippets feel like seeds of what I hope will grow into something more—a book, perhaps, about the meaning of home and the love that built it… and the things that can quietly tear it down. About what brings life into a home, what slowly drains it, and what offers a soft place to land.
Home has become more tender, more curious, and more sacred since walking my husband toward his eternal home, and through the years we spent fighting the disease that changed every bit of our house. Cancer and caregiver can change a house. It’s where love and loss have met, where suffering and beauty have both taken root, and where I keep learning that God still dwells in the ordinary—right here, in the house that love built.
My college kids had fall break last weekend. I can’t believe it’s already been a week since I was anxiously awaiting their arrival—and to think they’ve already been back on campus for days. Some hadn’t been home in months, and a few of their friends couldn’t make the trip home, so we made this weekend as home-like as we could.
It brought a familiar hum back into the house—the sound of laughter, footsteps, and stories spilling through the rooms that have known both silence and song. For a few days, home felt full again, warm and steady in the way only love can make it.
The house bustled with activity while still holding space for quiet retreat and rest. Bags carried through the back door, laughter echoing down the hallway, shoes kicked off in every corner. The ivories were tickled, the six-string plucked. Chatter. Song. Laughter. Prayer. Filled the air.
There’s something special about watching your kids—and the friends they’ve met in college—gather around the table, pray together, share stories, and laugh into the wee hours. It’s a reminder of how much has changed, and how much still remains.
The door was never closed. Life simply threw challenges our way, and grief gave us pause. Loss closed doors unexpectedly in ways that went beyond the death of my husband. We’re still reconciling some of that, asking God to show us healing and forgiveness where others fell short when we needed support the most.
“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”
Forgive me, too, for where I may have fallen short while doing my best to survive the death of my husband, and the death of who I once was, and who I became in the aftermath, who I am becoming now.
Love doesn’t stay locked out. It keeps finding a way in.
Still, my heart stayed open—just a little quieter for a season, learning how to hold peace and pain together. Having everyone home this weekend reminded me that love doesn’t disappear; it simply changes shape and keeps showing up.
There are days when this home musters up the old feeling of the happy place it used to be. It’s not because everything is fixed or finished—though we did take on some big projects together this weekend—but because joy and peace are learning to live here, right alongside the memories that shaped us.
As I folded the abundant sheets and towels from the weekend (in preparation for our next guests coming soon), I kept thinking back over the days just passed. Love lingers in the slightest details—the freshly made beds, the cozy matching “holiday” (Halloween) pajamas we all wore, the scent of home-cooked meals, the stories that stretched late into the night.
Meals overflowed with grace, both in abundance and in prayer. We remembered the faithfully departed—those whose chairs sit empty yet whose love still fills the room. Their presence felt near, as if heaven leaned in close for a moment to join our meal. The prayers, the plates passed hand to hand, the stories retold.
Communion.
Maybe healing isn’t found in grand gestures or dramatic entrances, but in the slow unfolding of peace—one visit, one conversation, one gathered table, one pile of freshly laundered towels, one newly made bed at a time.
They recognized Him in the breaking of the bread.— Luke 24:35
Hosting isn’t about perfection. Trust me, I humbly admit there is no perfect here. I may have caught a few glimpses of uninvited dust bunnies, and there are still plenty of things holding space in the corners of rooms—or in the garage—waiting to find their place or their new home.
Hospitality is about presence.
It’s about being a safe, soft place for others to land, even as we keep learning how to live fully in the house love built—and that crumbled in loss.
There is no guidebook for rebuilding a life after loss. Some people can help guide our steps—some are widows who have walked the road before us; some are authors or counselors who link arms to help us take the next right step; and sometimes, there are wise and holy priests who turn to God for answers and offer words the Spirit prompts them to share.
Last year, during a conversation with a beloved spiritual father, I wept and laid bare my heart. He listened with compassion and love. I shared how hard it was to ease the excruciating pain of loss. He listened again and then humbly said, “I don’t really know what to say.”
How humbling and how honorable to a grieving widow, to not be met with quick fixes or tidy instructions on how to get over the pain.
Then he looked up, inhaled deeply, and offered Spirit-inspired words: “Maybe you need to look outside of yourself.”
He admitted he didn’t know what that meant, but he felt the Spirit nudging him to share what had been placed on his heart.
I knew he wasn’t suggesting that I stop grieving or dismiss my pain. He was simply admitting that he didn’t have the words to explain the mystery, or to ease the ache—only the compassion to sit with it. He simply listened and gave me space to feel, to weep, to mourn. But the words he did offer have stayed with me, and I’ve pondered them for nearly a year.
In time and with prayer, I came to realize his word meant that maybe the Lord is asking me to look outside of myself instead to look toward where He is calling me, to notice those who are willing to be in my presence and simply be there. They will be home. They will be what helps ease the pain.
So I have. I’ve turned toward others—the ones who have shown up. Most often, it’s been my children, or their young adult friends, offering me the chance to give love away again—a love that’s meant to be shared.
Not in the same way I once gave it to my spouse, but still a love that needs to pour out—because love, by its nature, must keep moving, must keep giving, must keep becoming the way we live.
And maybe that’s where creating, writing, and hosting begin: not in doing more, but in noticing more. Not in perfection, but in presence. Remembering that God still breathes through what we offer, however small.
“Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”—St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
Who have you welcomed around your table lately?
Maybe the invitation isn’t only for others, but for us too—to return home to what’s true, and to the God who still meets us in the ordinary.
As the holidays approach, I’m thinking about what it means to open our homes again—especially when many of the traditions we once knew have changed or quietly fallen away. Invitations look different now, and so does hospitality. But I want to keep welcoming others in—with grace for what is, and hope for what’s still becoming. We are made for community
Maybe home, at its heart, isn’t just the place we live. It’s the space we keep offering. A place where love lingers, memories dwell, and new beginnings quietly unfold even while folding the guest towels.
Love doesn’t stay locked out. It keeps finding a way in.
Heather Lebano
