Going Home

In a little more than 2 weeks I will be going home.

Surely after nearly 30 years of sojourning at the other side of Pacific, home officially and logically should no longer be there but here. Somehow, habit has made it impossible to reverse the quote, even though in reality that home for the longest time never lived up to its name. Except for the language, nothing feels natural there: the culture, the life, the traffic, even the people that constitutes “family”.

Truth be told, time and space aren’t the guilty parties that contribute to this unfortunate sentiment. In growing up, there had always been much strain between me and the world I ever knew of such that I constantly felt the awkwardness like a fish out of water. I was the runt of the litter to start with: sickly, weak and needy. Later on, I failed to live up to the standards held by that of the culture and my own family. Despite all my good intentions and effort, I have not yet figured out how to live in harmony with them, let alone acquire their approval or even impress them. To them, I am forever a sad or sore thumb, undisciplined or too wild for my own good. I walk too fast, talk too loud and love and hate too much. Their open admonition or disapproval did not help either. Eventually I rightfully owned the ultimate crown, the black sheep of the family, in that I was nothing like them and thus inevitably followed the natural course to exile out of the country.

Such incompatibility between us continued on even with the safe distance of many oceans and lands. Whenever I am around them, the fear would overtake me despite of decades of life and experience I have gained from this part of the world. I would hopelessly reverse or regress to the same walking disaster as if I never left. The last few trips home in the past 10 years finally cured me of my homesickness. I came to the conclusion that less is more, farther is closer when it comes to visiting them.

Why is home not home? I have questioned time after time. Surely I couldn’t ask for more love and generosity than any family would give me. In fact I believe there isn’t anything that they would not spare for my sake. Unfortunately, my existence to them is better with distance or even in notion only. My last trip home was 4 years ago –and yet it feels like yesterday that I was back there on that top floor room, alone and abandoned like a caged animal – only totally gleeful and grateful. My family was all downstairs, carrying on with their life: my father watching his stock market’s up and down from the TV, my sister working on the computer, and my mother cleaning and cooking away at the kitchen. It was a safe haven for me: peaceful, quiet and away from all harm. When finally it was time to come down for meals, I’d trod down the 4 flies of stairs with my footsteps light and thoughts heavy with what I might say or do. In their presence, I would change into this guarded stranger that says little and listens much to avoid the wrong words to ever slip and incur their impatient yet well intended reprimands. To them, I have been this forever child, clumsy, unruly and helpless.

In contrast, this alien country has granted me much blessed asylum on the day when I landed. It didn’t take me long to realize that this “less civilized” culture with its tong twilling language, tasteless fast food and excessive modernization in fact did not at all try to condemn or conform me. I found it both liberating and fascinating that I was no longer under surveillance or better yet obligation to be who I should be. The family I have here started with someone with the most open mind and generous spirit who has accepted me since day one. Over the past 25 years, not a word of reproach has ever been raised against who I am, despite of our disagreements over many things. There is no need for tiptoeing or remorse with either words or works. My kitchen requires no scrubbing and my bed free to be unmade. I am my own mistress there! If I allow it, I can even feel confident and beautiful. I am home and free – almost. The only one that could ever disapprove me is none other than me.

My monologue seems to do its magic again, bringing my much troubled thought to yet another comforting revelation: No, I am not going home after all. I am already home. Nearly 3 decades later, it’s time for a change. I have done it in actions already, why not the name? As dreadful as the upcoming trip may be, I have this hope to keep me afloat in that while I am there I get to repeat the same words, “I am going home” - only this time with much joy and bliss.

Coming Home

I flipped open my cell phone to check the time: 4:20pm. Vinny’s was quiet and deserted for a change with me as the only customer and a few workers behind the counter chatting lightly. It was merely 5 minutes past the appointment time, but I couldn’t help fighting the anxiety within; I was worrying if K would not show and if she did show. It had been 2 years since we saw each other last, but that was not in the least why I had this dilemma. The truth was: my dear friend had just suffered one of the biggest losses in life and I was to face her first time after that.

10 minutes passed. I saw another car pulling up and sure enough K arrived. She stepped out, cell phone in action as she closed the car door and walked in. Her hair groomed and make-up light, she looked like any average woman who was meeting up with friends for a dinner. She spotted me and let out a beautiful smile. From outside, we were merely 2 friends reuniting after a long break with our happy greeting. “How are you?” “You look great!” There was no reason to believe anything otherwise, anything as remote as 2 mothers grieving for the death of a child.

There we were finally, nearly 1 month after the tragic accident when her 20-year-old son drowned at the Outer Bank. Our eyes looked at each other’s face and saw what hid beneath unsuspected by others. Suddenly, the fear of what to say or expect departed from me as our hearts spoke silently to each other the language only mothers would understand. When the real words did come, they filled in not only the blanks of the questions but also that hole of my heart. My ear listened to a simple story of a boy and his last camping trip with his brother and friends, and yet my eyes saw something exquisite beyond all expectation. The tragedy turned into this fairy tale with the most envious, happiest ending as I pictured this young man helplessly lost after 20 years of Sunday schools and Christian camps found his way home. I pictured his anguish as he burst open his parents’ room at 1am with his Bible in hands to start the inquiry of the faith that was taught to him. It did not make sense! How frustrated he must have been to discover his life turning from a period to a question mark and how escalated he must have been when God reversed that question only days later back to the assuring period, and then an exclamation mark!

Vinny’s was slowly filling up at 5pm. Soon enough, we were surrounded by a roomful of diners. And yet we were not there in that crowed, noisy restaurant. My tearful eyes now saw nothing but that young man and his joy at the Subway Station with his family when he disclosed his peace with God first time of his life. I imagined his excitement as he exchanged texting with his friends on the discovery of God’s word first time of his life. I wondered too if he, before the wave carried him away, saw the beauty of this world from the boundless sky to the endless sea first time of his life.

Oh, why wouldn’t these silly tears stop! And the pain too! I was fighting hopelessly with not only my tears but also the frustration. How could you feel anything but happy for that most blessed boy? In as short as a couple of weeks after being saved and safe, he lived to the fullest of anyone’s life time. I knew then that I might have cried for my brave friend there, but I cried more for the shameful realization of my envy. Would I trade my decades of drudgery and failure with his weeks of liberation and elation! What hit me to the core was the question that turned him back to God, which had been my own all these months: Am I saved? If I am, what of these unfruitful life, discontentment and misery? He was convicted finally of the contradicting sins and shames after 20 years of carrying the name of “Christian”, while I, nearly double of the time in God’s long suffering love, came face to face with the same confrontation less the excuse.

Two and half hours later with our dinner barely touched and many tears shed, the two friends finally wrapped up and bid our farewell. My eyes were all swollen from all that crying – I knew I must have made such a scene there at the restaurant, but that was the last in my mind on my way home. I felt this kinship with this young man there in that car as I shared not only his crimes but also the ultimate pardon from the same Judge. How I wished I had been there with him – that night before, when he and his friends laid down on the sandy beach looking at the starry sky and heaved with the deepest sigh the joyful exclamation: “This is the best trip of my life!” I was wondering as perfect as he felt then, he never would have known how true that statement was – only that it was in fact better than “best”, beyond all standards or envy. My young friend is home now, and thanks to him, so am I.