COMING HOME

 I used to think of staying home as the better alternative this season of celebrations and calamities. But due to an unpronounced love pact I made with my husband, I have to brave through the rowdy weather to go to the Western part of the Visayan region every Christmas. This year has been my nth time. But this particular season is the most turbulent not only plane-ride wise, but even with my spiritual and family relationship as well. And yet going away from the “mundane-ness” of the usual domestic clutter could actually mean something more than going away. Bu leaving our physical home, I actually have come home closer to my husband and kiddo.

I only stayed practically 18 hours in what could be the most remote town in Iloilo where the beach is but a stone-throw away, where the nipa-clad house of my in-laws are void of any basic gadgets like a radio or TV. Those 18 hours proved to have cleared my perspective of family and home. I have never seen my husband that happy and refreshed seeing his humble parents and siblings overjoyed by his homecoming. Each year every homecoming is like the first time.My husband could be aptly describe as one tot proudly brandishing our 4-year-old daughter to her grammy and grappy. I thought, my, this is home I have never been before. I have never seen and felt so much love by a family which I thought as entirely of different culture and language. I looked at my husband during our separate dinner for two somewhere away from the city and I saw in his face once again the reasons why I fell in love with him the first time and still will for the second time. All these years, I have always been drawn to a pure love that emanates from a home that brews unconditional love continuously even during stormy seasons.

If someone asked me one more time why travel away from home, I’d say so I could come home to what used to be “us” once again.