Still Home

I thought home would feel different once my parents were gone.

My parents’ house was where my two siblings and I grew up together. When my eldest sister got married, she moved in with her husband—but after our father passed away, they returned to live with my mother. They wanted to keep her company and be around to check on my sister’s daughter, who was looked after by a nanny during the day.

Later, my brother got married and moved out, while my sister built a house right next to my parents’ place. When Nande passed away, it meant the house would be empty. So my brother and his family moved in.

In the thick of my grief, I kept wondering—where would I go home to now? Which house? Whose house? People seemed to sense that question in me. Even those who weren’t close would gently remind me, “Don’t ever let anything become a reason for you not to come home.”

But it turned out differently. My sister still asks when I’ll come, what I’d like to eat when I get there. That first return after my mother’s passing carried a weight I couldn’t fully name, but I felt it pressing in all the same. The bed in front of the TV, placed there so she could be entertained throughout the day. The flowers that must miss the care of her hands. The window she would open first thing every morning. The countless places where she kept her medicines. Everything was still in its place. Nothing had changed—except she was no longer there.

But life moves on. As long as I still breathe, enduring is my only choice. I miss my mother deeply, but those who remain close to me are no less precious. The patience and acceptance people often talk about—I don’t need to go searching for them. The time that’s said to heal—I won’t wait for it to arrive. Because aren’t my siblings and I the most valuable legacy our parents left behind? Taking care of ourselves the best we can is our way of honoring them, of keeping them alive in our hearts, always.

Maybe this is how God helps us live with our wounds—by helping us get used to them. Or maybe it’s simply our weakness as human beings, that our minds and hearts can be so easily pulled away from pain. Or perhaps I’m just searching for reasons to keep going, to make it seem like I’m fine.

Lake Toba—our favorite place—still as beautiful as ever, though my heart longs to see it again with my mother

I thought the places we once visited with joy would become places we’d avoid. But they didn’t. We chose to go back to them. We sat at the same tables, ordered the same meals. The places were still beautiful. The food still tasted good. Because regret and “what ifs” are a kind of cruelty we shouldn’t let linger in our minds.

Fried rice—her signature choice when she couldn’t decide what to order. The taste remains, but so does the longing.

And so, I’ve come to realize—home is still home. It may not feel the same, and it may never be whole in the way it once was. But it remains the place I return to. Not because the walls hold me, but because the people, the memories, and the love still live there. And maybe, that’s enough.