Welcome home
I’m a sentimental person. Always have been and probably always will be. Certain things trigger nostalgia and bring a quick sting of tears to my eyes.
I recently experienced such an event. After a long flight from Madrid, we landed in Miami. Traveling during a pandemic is strange, and while it was an eerie experience in October, it was an exhausting one this time. Covid protocol is changing daily and no one knows how best to prove people are not traveling with the virus.
Nearly missing our flight because of the limited availability of testing in Spain, we arrived apprehensively at the airport, waiting expectantly for something to go wrong. After an arduous process of checking in, we arrived to our seats. The seats were terrible: far in the back, on a nearly full flight, with dogs and tired, irritable babies all around us. The flight was long and tiring. Travel can make you weary. The purpose of this trip also makes me weary. We’re bringing our oldest daughter home for college. She is going to be spending two months here with friends before we return to help her move into her dorm room this fall.
She is ready. We are not. I wonder some days if we did something wrong in preparing her to leave or if she’s just so lovable that it makes her parting painful. I’m certain it’s the latter. She is a delight. The Bible says delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. That is what she is. The desire of our hearts. We adore her and we can’t wait to see her make her own way in the world. We are just going to miss having her near us in the day to day.
So, when I was greeted after a 20+ hour journey with a kind and friendly “welcome home” in passport control, my eyes filled with tears. I love Spain and I have loved making a home there and making a home for others there. But America will always bring tears to my eyes upon arrival. The flag, the warm welcome, and the familiarity invite me in. Reminding me that it is okay to hold onto my nationality and feel pride in my country, while also recognizing its complicated history and heritage.
Since moving to Spain it has felt like we have two homes. One here and one there. Never fully fitting in in either, and somehow feeling comfortable and content in both in different ways. Now, with Bekah permanently in America, we feel that tension even more. A book I read years ago was so well-titled. The author chronicled her family’s travels abroad and called it At Home in the World. That is how how I feel. Our family is at home in the world. But when I’m honest and I hear “welcome home” as I hand over my American passport, I recognize the familiar sense of belonging and knowing that I only experience when back in the land I’ve called home for most of my life. And I think I can only appreciate that feeling so much now, knowing how hard it is to make another land “home.”
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