homesickness

Missing home?

I do!

Only a person far away from home knows what homesickness is.

It is the welling-up tears in your eyes, the lump in your throat, the waving ands when the train is drawing out of the station and taking you away from home. It is the strength with which you walk the three miles to your home with heavy bags in your hands after a long tiring trip, and the halt, excitement, and hesitation at the doorstep.

 

It is the impatience, anxiety, misery, fear, and wild guesses when you are waiting for a letter from home. It is the never fading joy of reading it again and again in bed.

 

It is the unusual patience and indomitable willpower with which you do to the ticket office at midnight and stand in a long line before the small window, and the ecstasy when you at last get a ticket at ten o’clock the next morning.

 

It is the sudden delight of closeness that strikes you when you meet a person from the same town, or even a stranger who has just been there. It is the eagerness to ask about everything, the trees, the hills, and your dear old folks. It is the sparkling eyes when you come upon a few words about your hometown in one corner of a newspaper.

 

It is the fear to sing “Home, Sweet Home” in case of a burst of tears. It is the murmur of “Mummy” in your dreams. It is the mere thought of the homemade cake making your mouth water. And it is the small grocery next door and the shop owner’s friendly smile that keeps on appearing in your dreams.

 

It is the sensitiveness you begin to develop. You cannot help daydreaming at the whistle of a train, and your eyes moisten at the sight of a house or even a tree that looks like the one in your hometown. It is the unspeakable sadness that creeps over you when you stand alone in the darkening dusk and see birds flying back to their nests and everybody hurrying home.

 

It is the silent sigh ad faint pain in your heart when you begin reading the story, “That spring forty years ago, I waved farewell to my village and my dear mother…”

So warm a word is home, and such a sweet sadness is homesickness.

(from Handbook of Writing)