Twelve Lessons Learned On The Road Home: A Road Map For Living A Well-loved Life

By Tommasina Huber

We learn lessons every day. Some lessons are simple, some profound. Some change our minds. Some change our perceptions. And some change our entire journey. At the end of life, which lessons learned when you look back will have the greatest influence on creating an abundantly joy-filled life? What lessons would you want to leave with those that you love? What experiences in your life journey have led to more love-filled roads?

This is the voyage of the author’s discovery of what living a well-loved life learned entails. The gift of these life-changing lessons will direct the reader in ways, that if applied, will lead to life-altering directional changes.

As the author narrates her encounters, she will bring the reader along with her on the journey. The reader and the author will travel through the mountains and valleys, through life’s ruts to beautiful soaring successes. They will venture together as they meet twelve beautiful souls who will honor them with the perspective of their life lessons as they walk the final steps in their journey. Their courageous stories will forever change the reader and may impact them profoundly in ways that they never expected. These encounters will bring tears. Tears of joy. Tears of hope. Tears of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890439956

Book preview

cover.jpg

Twelve Lessons Learned On The Road Home: A Road Map For Living A Well-loved Life

Tommasina Huber

ISBN 979-8-89043-994-9 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89043-995-6 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Tommasina Huber

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

The names and some of the contextual circumstances in the stories of those who honored us with their life lessons have been changed to respectfully protect the identity of their loved ones as well as the staff. The lessons, however, are real.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Before We Walk

Next Stop on the Road Home

Lesson 1

Wisdom from the Angel on the Way

Lesson 2

Preparing with the Right Gear for a Rainy Road Ahead

Lesson 3

The Ray of Light on Our Path Home

Lesson 4

It Is Never Too Late to Take the Road of Love

Lesson 5

Walking in Strange Lands

Lesson 6

When the Road Takes a Radical Turn

Lesson 7

I Need a Hand in this Journey

Lesson 8

The Hardest Stretch of Road Yet

Lesson 9

Don't Forget to Pack the Things You Really Need

Lesson 10

The Things to Unpack Before You Go

Lesson 11

Take the Roads that Really Matter

Lesson 12

All You Need to Bring Is Love

When I Make It Home

Reflections

Your Travel Agent's Guide to Twelve Lessons Learned on the Road Home

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Get in Touch

To find out more about upcoming books and speaking events for this author, please go to www.lovemattersworks.com or email the author at [e-mail].

To those who loved and believed in me unconditionally. To my husband, children, and friends who cheered me on through this bumpy life road and never stopped holding my hand through it. You grasped my hand harder when I needed to be pulled up or out and held it loosely when I needed to fly further than you could go with me. For accepting the true essence of me, I am forever grateful.

To the twelve people honored in this book and the many others who gifted me with their stories, their lessons, and their last breaths, I am so grateful to have had the honor to help escort you home. You will forever live in my heart.

To my editor, Hilary, who gave me the courage and the encouragement to be fearless in the fear. I know that our clashing soul meeting was no accident at all.

Most of all, for God's love and grace. I would not have made it here without that essential life-saving foundation. He has refined me in the fires, refreshed me in the waters of new life, and showed me the true meaning of enduring love.

Foreword

The lessons in this book were gifted to us by generous souls that wanted us to live a life full.

Full of love.

Full of grace.

Full of forgiveness.

Full for ourselves and others.

The gifts granted to us from these brave journeyers were meant to be used up. These are not just meaningful words to be read then placed on a bookshelf or a coffee table. Instead, they should be embedded into our daily lives.

After all, what use is a gift thoughtfully picked out for you if it is left wrapped and hidden away on a shelf?

This travel guide will help each of us dig a little deeper, open our hearts a little wider, and hopefully, will allow us to embrace life more completely—so we can live a more abundant life overflowing in love.

Love for others, we know well.

Love for others who are strangers.

And most of all, love for ourselves.

Thank you, dear friend, for taking this journey with me. Thank you for trusting me as your guide.

Now it is your turn to decide the next steps that you will take. I have so much faith in you. I know that you will make the souls watching over you, who have already walked the road home, so very proud of you.

Go, my dear friend, live a full life.

Introduction

We learn life lessons every day.

Some of these lessons are simple, some profound.

Some lessons change our minds.

Some change our perceptions.

And some change our entire journey.

At the end of life, which of these lessons learned when you look back will have the greatest influence on creating a life well lived?

We will venture together as you meet twelve beautiful souls that will honor us with the perspective of their life lessons as they walk the final steps in their journey.

This story is the journey of my discovery of what living a well-loved life learned from life-changing lessons is. It is a well-loved life that leads to life-altering directional changes. As I tell it, I will bring you along with me. We will both travel through mountains and valleys, through life's ruts, to beautiful soaring successes.

We will venture together as you meet twelve beautiful souls that will honor us with the perspective of their life lessons as they walk the final steps in their journey.

This is a book about hope. It is not stories about dying. These are lessons in the innate ways to live a life abundantly full of pure, honest love. I hope that this journey will change you and your world in deep, life-defining ways.

Have you ever thought about what you would do if you only had a year, a month, a week, or a day to live? What would be important? What wise words would you leave with those you love?

Have you ever thought about what you would do if you only had a year, a month, a week, or a day to live? What would be important? What wise words would you leave with those you love?

You will have the opportunity and privilege to learn from twelve unique individuals living through that exact place in their life journey to their final road home. Some of the lessons will make you laugh, some will make you cry, and all will fill your heart with an overwhelming love.

Thank you for walking with us on this journey home.

The journey map

The journey we are about to embark on is based on real people. These are heroes, in fact, who have allowed me to follow them down the road home to their final moments. Their courage, faith, and peace as they gently ascended to the final door was humbling, encouraging, and filled with raw humanness.

We will be honored to meet these incredible humans at their most vulnerable. Our paths will cross theirs during a time when they no longer cared about the judgment of the world around them, about any worldly achievements, or the need for another's approval. Their only desire was to leave this world more loving and more insightful than they entered it.

Every last story is their most crucial, most loving final gift to each of us. The lessons that I learned from these beautiful souls will be forever imprinted in my heart. I have held them so close for some time like the most precious jewels that the earth has produced.

However, a spirit-filled calling moves me to share them with you. Of course, the names and places have been changed, but the rest, yes, the rest is more real than you could ever imagine. Prepare to be touched with grand love, hope, and possibly a calling for something more in your life from where you sit right now.

Before I begin such a personal walk with you, I think it is important that you get to know your walking companion who is taking you down this unknown path. I am the wife of an amazing man, a mom of five unbelievable kids, and two dogs, Dunkin Donuts and Brew. I am an educator, storyteller, and hospice nurse. And I am a writer who has been honored to bring you precious pieces of life's secret jewels, unearthing them deep from within the hearts of others who have now passed through this world.

So now that you know the surface, let's go deeper.

I am a hopeless romantic who believes that love conquers all. I believe that in the end, the good side will always win (we just don't always have the pleasure of seeing it with our own eyes) and that ultimately most people want to do good; some are just too broken to know how. Even deeper: I am usually the lamb among the lions, the bummer lamb, because I have been broken by people who were supposed to care for me. But then I was put together piece by piece by my courageous husband. Most importantly, I am a daughter of God who is finally understanding that I am perfectly, wonderfully made by him—so I am working on having more self-acceptance.

Now it's your turn.

Who are you? Okay, that is the résumé builder.

Now go deeper.

Who is just beneath the surface that only a few get to see?

Further now. Don't be afraid. It is just you and me. I promise to be with you unconditionally and pick you up as you stumble. Who is the hidden you that no one really knows? That is the person I want to journey with. I want to extend my hand to hold the hand of that version of you to walk with you through this incredible journey.

I was graced to witness the real essence of the human heart and untethered humanness in the people that you are about to get to know in the following pages. These beautiful souls had no one to impress, no promotions or awards to try and win; they just had pure, honest love to extend to everyone. After you read about them, you will also be a part of their legacy, of their everlasting light here on earth. It is only right that we take the real us to meet the real them since they brought their complete authenticity.

Earlier I mentioned God. I want to address this right up front. I am spiritual. This belief lives in the essence of who I am now. I wasn't always spiritual. I found God with open arms held out during a bad Lifetime movie moment of my life. His spirit carried me through moments, through complete darkness, when I could not see any light. I am not sure you and I would be journeying together if it wasn't for his complete mercy and grace for such a broken human as I was.

If you are spiritual and reading this, hopefully, these stories will bring you even more peace and understanding of the deep essence of the command Love one another. The true meaning of agape love.

If you aren't spiritual, that is okay. This book will still be very meaningful to you. For most of my life, I was right there with you. So there is no judging and no pushing here.

I know some pretty, unloving people who call themselves religious. Some who show more judgment than they do love and grace. That may be why you are where you are today, apprehensive about this spiritual thing, fearful of being judged as not being worthy enough. Please believe me; you are more than worthy. I am honored to walk this journey with you. So come as you are, exactly as you are, to be completely loved and accepted. This book is about loving and learning together. So don't worry, you will not feel excluded.

This is an all-inclusive trip.

The people and circumstances you will encounter as we embark on our travels are real. They will change your soul. The stories are of deep love, battles won, life lessons learned, and remarkable wisdom. I feel so honored and grateful that I was given the extraordinary opportunity to walk the last roads with these special humans. I hope they are looking down from above and saying, Good job, sweet girl. You did well. You got the message right.

Packing for the journey: What to take, what to unpack

I think it is important to put some context around how I became a hospice volunteer, then nurse, now educator, and writer. People always say, You must have a special heart to do the work that you do. My experience with these remarkable souls is the perfect example of God choosing the nobodies to live some amazing adventures and share the stuff that ultimately matters to love each other completely without conditions here on earth.

I have to say, in my eyes, there is nothing really outstanding about me that would make one think I would be picked to witness these important messages. In fact, I have had a really rough path and a not-so-pretty road getting here. There have been some successes, many failures, and some things done very well, although most were done in a mediocre fashion. There have also been some outstanding moments and some real catastrophes. The reason I am sharing this detail that I am no better, no more put together, and no more special than anyone reading this is because it's important for you to know that I was just a regular human who was given a spectacular opportunity to see grace in play firsthand. Maybe that is another reason that I have not written this book sooner. I kept looking around, saying, Who, me? Are you sure?

As I sat down and relived these moments, I decided it was important to be as honest and raw about the circumstances surrounding these people as they took their last breaths. It is the only way to do their stories justice. I am not going to lie; I am terrified. Terrified of what the people who know the surface me will think. I have played a role for so long. Been so put together and so suited up. My armor is thick in this harsh world. I have been terrified of what those who I should have had a stronger voice with will say to rebuke my journey to protect their shame. But then it occurred to me—no one can rebuke my heart, no one can take away my understanding of what was said and how it impacted my heart and soul.

Only I know the deep wounds, the moments of pure joy, the sorrows that ache so deep that some nights it is hard to sleep. Unforgettable experiences like these are part of the walk that has shaped us. They are part of the brokenness that makes us special. And it is important that you and I accept and be thoughtful of this to fully appreciate this journey. We need to understand that others may have a completely different perspective of the same journey. They bring their baggage, and we bring ours. If we want to be understood and truly heard, we need to understand and truly hear others. We need to accept their truths if we want others to embrace our truth. It is also important to own those times when we have fallen short of giving the grace, mercy, and love that we so desire from other people each day.

So I say today, for any of those in my life's journey who have caused scars and wounds, You are forgiven.

For those of you who need forgiveness from others, read this story without shame. There is no need to carry that baggage any longer. On this road that we are to walk together, there is no room for that shame. There is only room for love and grace. I was gifted with a heart to love—I extend that pure gift to you today.

So I say today for any of those in my life's journey who have caused scars and wounds, You are forgiven.

As you travel with me today, you will not be able to carry your bags filled with your past indignities. On our trip, there is no room for those things. Open up the heavy baggage. Take out the regret; drop it here. Take out the shame; leave it on the ground. Release the mistakes, forgive yourself. Let the birds take those pieces to build their nests with. Let the clear waves wash away the dirty remnants. Bring with you a loving heart. Bring with you grace. Bring with you an open mind. Some of what you will experience will take that and some faith to understand. During this journey, we will need to look forward. If you look back, you will miss the beauty of it all. If you look back, you will stumble and fall. I will carry you forward, and you will carry me.

There is one last thing that I want you to bring with you during our time together. Bring your