2011 (family home)
Repost from 2017
… I went to California to visit my family: My mom, my four brothers and sister-in-laws, my twelve nieces and nephews, plus my aunts and multitude of cousins and friends. I have “gone back home” every year, sometimes twice since I left thirty years ago.
Homesickness is as common as breathing.
I am always missing someone, and loving whoever I am with.
Sietske, a blog reader of mine, wrote me an email when I returned. In it she described spot-on the feelings stirred and why they are stirred regarding homesickness.
Home Sickness by Sietske
“I stumbled upon your blog, by chance, because of my fascination with France (I am from Holland myself, but spend my summer holidays in France), some 7 years ago, and I have been reading you ever since, because I guess there were a few parallels in our lives. Like you, I married someone from another country and moved away to his homeland (Lebanon), and have two children (one who has left the nest, still grateful for having one at home). And your post about how leaving home, your American home that is, seems to get more and more difficult with age, really struck a chord. Your post touched me, because I have the same sentiments. Saying goodbye gets harder and harder all the time.
When I moved to Lebanon, there was a war here, and at times the only way of communicating with ‘home’, my parents, was through telex. In the beginning I would see my parents once, twice a year, sometimes no longer than a week, and somehow I was fine with it. I was young, I had my husband, I had my children, I had a busy life, and my parents had their own busy lives. Later on, I spent more time with them, but going back to Lebanon was never a problem for me, because ‘home’ – my parents and the house I grew up in – would always be there when I would get back the next time. I would still sleep in my old room, in the same bed, as I had done my entire live. The dishes in the cupboards, the books in the book case, everything the way I remember, would still be there.
But my mom passed away this summer, and my dad, although still living in the old house, is currently 101. And now it dawns on me that every time I say goodbye, it may be the last time. And not only will it be the last time I will see him, but it will also be the last time that I will have slept in my own little bed, in my own room, and will have had breakfast at the old table, surrounded with all the things of my childhood. It will be the end of an era. It sounds strange but I think it is this realization, that at that moment, my childhood will be forever out of reach, that causes goodbyes to become harder and harder with age.
Twenty years ago
And it is different for me, for you too I guess, than it is for my brothers, who still live in Holland. They have set up their lives in Holland, and so, in a way, they have an alternatively established link to home, but my link to ‘home’ is through my parents and my ancestral home. The realization that soon this link will no longer be there, is making it -for me at least – each time harder and harder to say goodbye. The last 3 times were really difficult. And so when I read your post, it really touched me. In a way I am glad that I am not the only one that has this sentiment.
Now that I have a child of my own who has left to study abroad, I realize how difficult it must have been for my parents to have a child so far away. Anyway, this was all a very long story, just to tell you that I have been reading you for some seven years now, and although I never ever leave comments (I am more known as a lurker, I guess), I just wanted to share with you how your words have touched me.
Sietske Galama in Beirut
Thank you Sietske.
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