Home is Family

Home is not a place. Home is a feeling. What makes a house a home are the people who live in it and how they make you feel. My family makes me feel at home. Without family, your home isn’t as comforting or safe. As I'm writing this, I have stitches on my left eye. The incident occurred in Nicaragua, two days before I went home. It is what made me realize that home is my family. Home is my family visiting me at the hospital even though they live far away from it. They didn’t have to, but they did because they genuinely cared about me. My grandma came. Nothing feels more like home than her hugs when I was hurt. My grandma's brother also came to the hospital. Home is him telling me stories to distract me when I was in pain and scared. My cousins and my other grandma were all there just to comfort me. Even if they had stuff to do, they still came because they really cared. Home is my sister letting me rest my bleeding face on her shoulder even if she hates getting dirty, comforting me and translating what the doctors were saying. Home is the feeling I got when the following day, several family friends and relatives brought me gifts and food. They found a way to make time to make me feel better. That night was my last night before leaving Nicaragua to come home. That night, I cried so much because I knew that was my last day in that other home of mine. I knew it was the last time I would see them in a long time. I was going home and they had all come all this way to make me feel better. I couldn’t even say “thank you”. Anywhere you go as long as you are with your family, you are home. Even when you are far away from home. Home is knowing that next time I travel to see my family, I will remember to say thank you. But above all my home is my mom and dad, no matter what happens. Without family, a place isn’t home.