Homesickness

When I was younger, I was always the homesick kid. I was the one that would struggle through summer camp with teary eyes. I was the one that would go home from sleepovers early because I missed my family. The idea of leaving my family, especially my mom, was always painful to me. Even more painful was the idea that my family could simply carry on without me, living their day-to-day life without my presence.

As I got older, the severity of it slowly slipped away. Sure, once in a while I would still be struck with a pang of homesickness when my sister snapchated me a picture of my family from our favorite restaurant or my family facetime me during a lazy afternoon, but at least when I was at Notre Dame I was lucky enough to only be a 3-hour train ride away from my hometown. I even came full circle this summer while working as a camp counselor, making it my job to comfort and dry the eyes of homesick campers.

Three weeks ago, everything changed. I said good-bye to my family through teary eyes and I waved to them the entire time I was in the TSA line (it might have been a little overkill). It was heartbreaking to think that I wouldn’t see them for at least 5 months. This will be the longest I’ve gone without seeing my family. Despite my lifelong dream of exploring Europe, a little part of me thought of me at age 11. And that little part of me wondered, could I actually do this?

Luckily between classes and making friends and eating too many pastries and going to museums till my eyes grow droopy- I haven’t had much time to catch my breath, much less be homesick. But, it is in the tiny quiet moments that I find myself missing home the most- in the stillness of Mass on Sunday, or just before I open my eyes in the morning and I still think I’m in my bed at home. These little moments are when it hits me: I miss home.

I reflected back to a wonderful homily I heard just before [KM1] I left for France. It was November at a post choir rehearsal trip to Root Beer Float mass on the Feast Day of St Francis Xavier. Father Pat gave a wonderful homily about the friendship that St Ignatus Loyola and St Francis Xavier shared. Both men took their Jesuit vows in the church of St. Pierre du Montmartre Church (which is in one of my favorite parts of Paris). However from there they wanted to go in two different directions, Loyola wanted to stay put in Paris, serving others and working on his own writing. St. Francis Xavier wanted to follow his call as a missionary and travel the world teaching about Jesus. Loyola was upset at first- Xavier was a dear friend and he wanted him to stay in Paris with him. But it was Xavier’s call to travel and he knew that he couldn’t stay in one place, God was asking something different from him. It was only through God’s grace that Loyola realized that the most loving thing that he could do is to let Xavier go. So he said good-bye to his friend, because he loved him so much, he could let him go.

For those of us studying abroad, we are doing just as Xavier did, we are leaving the nest of what is safe and familiar, and following our call into the unknown. We might not go preaching the mission of the Jesuits or even with the direct purpose of charity and service, but we go to exchange thoughts and ideas. The experiences we have abroad will shape and transform us, exposing us to new places, people, and concepts that we haven’t yet had the chance to explore. This is part of God’s call for us, a call to be exactly where we are supposed to be and to let the experience mold us into people can chance the world in the unique ways we are supposed to. But we also do this knowing that there are people who love us so much- that they let us go. Loyola had to let Xavier leave in order to fulfill God’s plan for him and so to do our families and friends.

When the moments of homesickness hit me, it is this thought that I turn to. I am only here because people, my family and friends love me so much that they have given me the chance to leave and explore. They realize that this is where I need to be and that this experience will transform me. And I take comfort in knowing that when I return, it will be back to this place of love; that I am so privileged and blessed to have a place to be homesick for.