Fifty Years On, Still Homesick: What a Health Scare Brings Up

Fifty years of a good life is not erased by one hard week.

By Neil Solomon · 2 min read

Picture a couple named Cornelius and Marta. They moved to Australia long ago and built a life there. Then one of them has a health scare, and a feeling returns that they thought was gone.

The story that comes to mind was shared by someone who had been away from their first home for fifty years and still felt homesick. I found that moving. Fifty years is a long time. It tells me that a place can be home and still not be the home.

Why illness stirs it up

When we are well, we can set the question of where we belong to one side. When we are not, it comes forward. We want familiar voices, familiar food, even a familiar way of being asked how we feel. A hospital corridor can feel very far from the town we grew up in.

I do not think this means the move was a mistake. Fifty years of a good life is not erased by one hard week. It means that the heart keeps a map of its own, and illness is when we read it.

The long view

People who live abroad for decades describe a quiet thing: the pull toward the place of their beginnings does not always fade. For some, it grows in later years. For others, it stays small. Neither is better. It is just something to know about yourself.

If you are planning for a long stay, I think it helps to ask how you might feel in a time of illness, not just in a time of ease. Who would be near? Who could come? What would you want within reach?

Cornelius and Marta talked it over at the hospital cafe.

"I keep thinking about the town I grew up in," Cornelius says.

"Do you want to go back?" Marta asks.

"I do not know. I just wanted you to hear me say it."

That seems to me the heart of it. Sometimes the longing needs a listener more than an answer.