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Writer's pictureAkanksha Shrivastava

Home is Where the Heart Resides

By Aaliya Raza, Pakistan


I have been living in Naples, Italy, since 2007. I came here as an international student. This odyssey of mine was not as simple as just peregrinating from my homeland to an alien country. The two years of my experience went from skipping family gatherings and momentous occasions, perching alone in my room, buzzing all day long like a bee, and owling away whole nights sleeplessly to acquiring admission at prestigious universities on full merit scholarships. I was a moth chasing a star, so blinded by its mesmerizing light that I forgot to celebrate essential things in my life.

Eventually, I came here and got my higher education went through the PR process and finally started business here in Italy. Today I have my family with me; my parents, wife, and three of our children; the financial means, cars, expensive attire, and even a house. Yet, among all this pursuit of material things and worldly gains, I missed one thing; something we call Home.

Home is Where the Heart Resides


Yes, in 16 years of my life, the values I adopted, and the scale I earned, I think Home is not about living together or having a meal three times a day. Home is created by a magnificent amalgamation of beings with which you love and cherish every moment. It is an abode of infinite happy little things that breathe life into a place made of bricks and stone; a nest where your parents taught you how to fly when you were just a tiny birdling. Home is where you build your own humble palace with the love of your life and raised beautiful princes and princesses.

A home stretches beyond the people you personally know. I mean the people like the local shopkeepers, the school where you studied and made new friends, the kind teachers who taught you new skills, and that old uncle with vantage glasses who always had sewed your clothes narrated fantastic tales. The middle-aged housewife, abiding in the adjoining apartment, always brings her baked cookies and scones. These fantastic people make our neighborhood homely and alive like magical creatures residing in an enchanted forest.

Home is where solid and beautiful memories are weaved together on a canvas of meaningful relations and friendships. I remember my father’s proud face when he witnessed me riding the bicycle he gifted me on my 10th birthday and my mother’s crescent smile and starry eyes when she used to kiss me before sleep. I believe that a home is not a place built by sharing multiple concrete roofs and joining stone walls with neighbors. Home is a sheltered space surrounding your very own Eden where your children can bloom beautifully like happy daffodils. Home is where you are fearless and independent. Your castle where you have hundreds of supporting faces behind you. It is that sanctuary that indulges you in your past and future.

Home is the name of growing together. It’s the economy in which everyone cares for each other. It’s an organization where everyone feels equal. It’s the sky where everyone sleeps with satisfied emotions.

A true home can be at far more distance. A hospital can be a true home where a son travels daily and spends time with his mother to console and comfort her. If a husband drives 87 km to meet his wife at her office, that meeting place becomes a home. Every place is a home where each soul gets pleasure with zero pain and greed.

Home is not a four-walled box where you decorate multiple lonely models of cars. Home doesn’t get beautiful by coloring the walls, hanging photos, arranging plates on the dining table, having a room to sleep in, or a lawn to lay on and ponder upon the stars. I had seen people living in penniless huts as small as tombs with little space, yet they were content and happy. A home is a heaven on earth of lovely brief spells that may never come again.

Therefore, strive to establish a home that possesses no walls and roofs and proliferate love and trust among all who cross by. Make a home where your heart honestly, truly, and completely feels at Home.

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