A place to return to

Someone once asked me:

“If one day your parents are gone, your children have grown up and left to start families of their own, and old age has taken your life partner from you too, what will you do?”

I don’t know where that question came from.

Nor do I know what the person was thinking when they asked something so sad.

I only remember something someone once told me:

“If one day there’s no one left, go back to the place where you grew up. Sit there and wait for your parents to come and get you.”

I found those words beautiful.

Beautiful in a strange way.

When I was little, I never thought about leaving my parents’ house one day.

Back then, home was home.

Mom and Dad were Mom and Dad.

When I woke up in the morning, someone would call me to eat.

When I came home from school, someone would ask how my day had been.

When I was sick, someone would sit beside me.

When I was sad, sometimes Mom already knew, without my having to say a word.

I grew up with ordinary things like these.

So ordinary that I never thought to call them happiness.

Then I grew older.

I began to find paths of my own.

Studying.

Working.

Starting a business.

Failing.

Starting over.

There were days so busy that even when my parents called, I felt I had no time to answer.

There were visits home when I was soon rushing off again.

There were times when I thought I had so much life ahead of me.

My parents were still there.

Home was still there.

I could go back whenever I wanted.

Then one day, I had a family of my own.

I was no longer just a child with a home to return to.

I became someone responsible for another home.

Then came a child.

I began to understand, in a different way, how my parents must have felt all those years ago.

I watched Bánh Mì sleep.

Watched my child grow.

Watched those first steps.

Listened to those first calls of “Dad” and “Mom.”

I know that one day, Bánh Mì will leave home too.

Not for lack of love for us.

But because that is how a child grows up.

There will be someone to love.

A family of their own.

Busy days.

Another home to return to.

Just as there were for me.

Just as there are for so many of us.

Thinking about this, I suddenly realized that perhaps a human life is a circle.

As children, we are the ones our parents come to get.

As we grow up, we go out in search of a life.

When we have families, we become the ones who welcome our children home.

Then the children grow up.

They leave in turn.

And we stay behind.

Not to blame them.

But to understand that we were once children just like them.

I once left my parents to find a life of my own.

Perhaps Bánh Mì will do the same.

After so many years of living through life’s joys and sorrows, there is one thing I understand more and more.

Many people love us.

But there is something quite different about our parents’ love.

It doesn’t ask us to be successful.

Or to be talented.

Or to hold some title.

Or to accomplish anything grand.

We can fail.

We can lose everything.

We can be weary.

We can come home carrying a tangle of troubles we have no idea how to solve.

Our parents can still open the door.

“Come home, sweetheart.”

Perhaps this is one of the rare kinds of love in life that asks for nothing in return.

I used to look at the old house and see only the place where I had grown up.

Looking at it now, I see something like an anchor.

A place that holds on to some part of me as the years keep drifting by.

Out in the world, I can be many things.

A husband.

A father.

A working man.

Someone who once started a business.

Someone who has failed.

Someone who has stood before many people and spoken about the things he believes in.

But when I come home to my parents, perhaps I don’t have to be anyone at all.

I am simply their child.

Nothing more.

And I think that is a feeling very hard to find again once we are grown.

Someone asked me what I would do if, one day, everyone I loved left me, one by one.

I don’t know yet.

Nor do I want to think too much about that day.

Because today, my parents are still here.

My wife is still beside me.

Bánh Mì is still running around the house.

There are still meals together.

There are still phone calls.

I can still go and visit my parents.

And I can still sit beside them, listening to stories I have probably heard a hundred times.

While we still have these things, we rarely give them much thought.

But one day, when they are gone, perhaps we will miss them.

Miss a voice calling our name.

Miss a kitchen.

Miss an old chair.

Miss someone who used to stand at the door, waiting for us to come home.

Perhaps that is why I love those words.

If one day you don’t know where to go, return to the place where you grew up.

Sit there.

And wait for your parents to come and get you.

It sounds sad.

But I find a little peace in it.

Because after all those years spent searching for a place to belong, perhaps that place has been there all along.

It’s just that we grew up.

Left.

Got busy.

And forgot.

I used to think the future was made of things that lay ahead.

A new job.

A new plan.

A new house.

Another city.

Another life.

But now, sometimes I look at my parents and think:

“Perhaps my future is sitting right there too.”

In a house that has grown old.

In the place where I grew up.

The place I can return to someday if I grow weary of life.

Without bringing any achievements.

Without bringing any money.

Without having to tell anyone what I have accomplished.

Just come home.

Sit down.

And know that I am still someone’s child.

Then I think of Bánh Mì again.

One day, my child will grow up.

There will be a whole life of their own.

I will watch Bánh Mì leave, just as my parents once watched me.

Perhaps only then will I fully understand the look in my parents’ eyes all those years ago.

Perhaps I too will stand at the door.

Watching a child I once held in my arms walk away.

With joy in my heart, and a very small hollow place beside it.

But I will not hold my child back.

Because my parents once loved me by letting me go.

And perhaps loving a child also means learning to let them have a life of their own.

I only hope that wherever Bánh Mì goes in the years ahead, my child will always know:

If one day you are tired.

If one day you fail.

If one day you don’t know where to go.

You will still have a place to come home to.

Just as I do.

Just as my parents do.

Just as all of us do, children who once left a home so we could grow up.

There are places we left long ago but carry in our hearts for the rest of our lives.

And perhaps, in the end, what a person needs is not some grand place to belong.

Only a place where someone still calls out:

“Come home, my child.”