To go back home

“We will now start boarding our flight to Sacramento…” announced the flight attendant at Gate 17 in the Atlanta International airport. That announcement was music to my ears at 7 AM in the morning because it took me one step closer to my home at the end of a long overnight wait in the airport.

Georgia was on my mind when I flew in a couple days earlier with a heavy to attend the sudden and unexpected funeral of my 52 year old cousin. My return flight home was not to be was planned as Mother Nature decided to pause me and thousands of other passengers for the night as she incarnated as a sever storm. It was a blessing in disguise as it was that pause I needed to reflect on many thoughts and emotions that my experience at the funeral had triggered. Home seemed farther than it was through the night. I was yearning to go back home.

I shuffled my way along with the other weary passengers through the jetway and finally plopped my mass into my seat. The cool airconditioned air whiffed life into me even as my body and mind were ready to sign off into deep slumber. My window seat felt heavenly.

I was watching the rest of the passengers looking for their seats. I noticed a young man in uniform from afar. Looking left and then right, he was looking for his seat as well. He approached my row and, as though he had found a treasure in the open middle seat, said “that’s my seat”. It was signal for the person in the aisle seat and me to start making bodily and positional adjustments for him to squeeze in. We both cooperated. The young man dropped his mass into the middle seat and released a sigh of relief.

The young man, I guessed, was in his late teens to early twenties. Adorned in off-duty utility uniform, he was of average height and lean.

After a few moments of silent familiarization, I said to my co-passenger “thank you for your service to the country”. He politely acknowledged my sentiment of gratitude.

“Going home?” I continued.

“Yes” he said.

“I completed boot camp and have two weeks off” he said.

“Congratulations” I said.

“It was tough” he went on. I could tell that he was very personable and respectful of people.

“I’m sure it must have been demanding physically” I said in imagination of what I had seen in the movies.

“Yes but more so mentally. They break you down.”

I sensed his pride of achievement of the rigors of bootcamp. I also sensed his strong longing to go home for a while.

“Where’s home?” I asked knowing my familiarity of Sacramento and the surrounding areas.

“Modesto” he said.

“How are you gong to go to Modesto from the Sacramento airport” I asked knowing that its about 90 miles away.

“My mother and sister will pick me up” he said with enthusiasm.

“That’s so wonderful. They must be so happy to see you after many months” I said, envisioning the joy of the family reunion at the baggage claim area of the Sacramento airport.

By now, we both had struck a chord of friendship.

“I can’t wait to eat the fish and pilav rice that my mother makes so well” he said. The young man’s love for his family and home was already playing out on the tarmac of the Georgia International Airport. I felt very happy for him and his family.

It was very interesting how he started sharing his happiness in going back home. It seemed like he had to share his happiness with someone. That someone happened to be me.

We were both so happy to be going back home.

The plane finally took off. The young man slipped into deep slumber.

I traveled back in time to the 80’s when I wore a younger man’s clothes.

I went off to study engineering in Bangalore for 3 years. It was the first time that I left home in Madras and traveled west 300 km away from family. The experience was empowering and liberating. But is also made me appreciate the warmth of my family, my mother’s delicious cooking and the comfort of my bed that I shared with my younger brother. I always looked forward to boarding the Bangalore to Madras overnight express train every 3 months to spend the break at home with my family.

My son came back home at the end of his first semester. After a good night’s sleep he asked, “did you buy a new mattress? It was so comfortable.”

My wife and I looked at teach other. She said “no, its the same mattress that you slept on all these years”.

Such is the magic of home and family.

Absence magnifies presence.

Absence makes appreciate presence.

Lionel Ritchie, quotes his father’s advice in the Netflix documentary about the making of “We are the World” song:

“Love to come home because one day you will not be able to return home; the house may be there but the people may not.”

I’m reminded of a line from Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon. He writes:

“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place… and there are things in us we can find again only by going back there.”

Mercier’s train carries his protagonist toward the places that still hold pieces of him. My plane from Atlanta made me appreciate home – the home that shapes me now and the home that shaped me.

Today, when I write this, happens to be April 10, 2026. Artemis II came back safely after a historic fly-by of the moon. It’ s four astronauts, I’m sure, are eager to go back home.

Some journeys lead me down memory lane, some down an actual lane, yet they all push me to go back home.

Inspired on April 10, 2025