The Longing for a Home

 

To the ten-year-old boy fleeing from his war-ravaged motherland, with palms clasped on both ears, home is anything strong enough to resist bullets. A silent prayer for the mortar to hold firm.

Home is an idea rooted in our deepest longing. It changes with time, shifting its shape like a river that adjusts itself to accommodate land during its age-old course.

To many of us, homes are tugs at our heartstrings from which often oozes the warmth of a sun-kissed winter afternoon long lost in time. A safe space protecting smiling faces in old photographs, broken toys, and their missing parts cushioned with dust; pieces of paper with names in it and yellowish tinges at the corners, ones that broke hearts, and others that divided families.

And yet, when I asked the eighty-year-old widow the meaning of home, her frail fingers pointed towards the gloomy white sky. Her lips moved to curve the lines on her face. Her home was tied to a person. Maybe, homes are immune to Death, too.

You may find your version of home in a small hill town or a secluded beach but no matter how much you convince yourself homes aren’t found in people, you still crave for human connections. People who care when you come back after a long hard day. People for whom you feel like coming back. For homes feel warmer when shared.

Your heart may be a global citizen but think of home as a small chamber in your heart; a museum that protects the familiar smell of your walls, your memories, and secrets. And most importantly, your stories.

Because what is a home if there are no stories in it.

And what are stories, if there are no people in it.