Mom Is Home

Home isn’t made of four walls and a roof. It’s made of the person who stays. I remember coming home from school in Hong Kong and seeing everything packed into boxes. The house felt hollow. Even the air smelled unfamiliar. My mom told me we were moving to San Francisco. I didn’t argue or cry. I just nodded. Everything around me was being taken apart: my desk, my bed, the life I had known. But my mom wasn’t. Before I fully understood what leaving meant, I was already on a plane, saying goodbye to the place I had lived for seven years. San Francisco felt unfamiliar at first. I heard Spanish in stores, in parks, and at school. I missed knowing where everything was and how everything fit together. My mom never seemed lost, even when I did. When I felt unsure, she would sit beside me and say, “We’ll figure it out.” She didn’t promise it would be easy. She just stayed steady. It was enough. I thought that was the last time we would move. After only a few months, we moved again, this time to Canada. The winters were harsher, and instead of Spanish, I was learning French. Snow replaced familiar streets; new words replaced familiar sounds. I wasn’t as afraid of the change because I had already learned something. Home isn’t the city I live in. It isn’t the languages around me or the weather outside. It is the person who stays through every goodbye. Mom is my home.