The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou (1928-2014), an American poet, memoirist, author, actress, and civil rights activist. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential literary voices of the 20th century.
As a child growing up in the late 1950s, I thought a home was simply the place where parents and their children lived together. To my young mind, the idea seemed clear, fixed, and beyond question. A home was a house — nothing more and nothing less. It had wooden walls, a roof that sheltered us from the rain, and a doorway through which family members came and went each day. Inside it were familiar voices, familiar routines, and the quiet assurance that life would continue in the same predictable rhythm tomorrow.
In our village, most of the other children appeared to live much the same way. Their parents were with them, and every family occupied its own house, whether large or small. Because of this, I naturally assumed that everyone understood “home” exactly as I did. There seemed to be no reason to think otherwise. At that age, children rarely question the meanings of ordinary things. We accept the world as it appears before us, simple and complete.
Our village itself was small and close-knit. Everyone knew one another, and the sounds of daily life drifted freely from one household to another. To me, the village felt permanent, almost timeless, as though nothing there could ever truly change.
Yet childhood understanding is often fragile, though we do not realise it.
During the early 1960s, while attending our village primary school, my understanding of the word “home” slowly began to shift. The change did not happen suddenly. It came quietly, almost unnoticed, through the ordinary movements of life itself. Gradually, I began to sense that home was not always tied to a single building or a fixed location.
Sometimes, home was the house in the village where we spent much of our time. It was where neighbours greeted one another each morning and where familiar routines shaped our days. I knew every corner of that house — the worn wooden floorboards, the scent of cooking drifting from the kitchen, and the comforting sounds of my parents moving about before dawn.
But there were other times when home became something entirely different.
Several miles away from the village was our paddy farm, where my family stayed until the harvesting seasons. There stood a small hut where we stayed for months at a time.
As a young boy, I found the place both beautiful and unsettling. During the day, the endless fields seemed alive beneath the sun, but after sunset, the world felt vast and lonely. Yet despite its simplicity, that little hut somehow also felt like home.
At first, I could not understand why.
The hut was not permanent. We stayed there only when work demanded it. It lacked the familiar structure of our village life, and yet the feeling of belonging remained. My parents cooked there, rested there, and spoke to one another there in the same quiet manner they did at home in the village. Their presence transformed the place. Wherever they were, warmth followed.
There were also occasions when we stayed overnight at relatives’ homes. Sometimes it was because of family gatherings, weddings, illnesses, or simply the practical demands of travelling long distances in those days. I remember lying awake in unfamiliar rooms, surrounded by different smells and sounds, watching shadows move softly across walls I did not recognise.
Yet even in those unfamiliar surroundings, I rarely felt afraid for long. My parents were nearby, and because of that, a strange house could somehow become comforting. The feeling puzzled me. How could places so different from one another all feel like home?
As a child, I struggled to explain it even to myself.
Part of me still wanted to believe that home was a fixed place — a house that belonged to us alone. But another part of me had already begun to realise that the truth was more complicated. The feeling of home seemed able to travel. It shifted quietly from one place to another, carried by the invisible bonds between people.
At that age, I lacked the words to describe such thoughts. Children often sense truths long before they fully understand them.
Years passed, as years always do. Childhood slowly gave way to adolescence, and the world beyond the village gradually widened before me. During my secondary school years, I spent more time reading books borrowed from the school library. One day, while reading quietly in the library, I came across the phrase: “Home is where the heart is.”
At first, the sentence meant very little to me. The words sounded poetic, almost mysterious, but distant from my understanding. I read them repeatedly, hoping clarity would suddenly appear. Yet the meaning remained elusive. How could the heart determine where home was? Surely home was a real place — something visible and solid.
Sensing my confusion, one of my teachers later explained the phrase in class. He explained that many people leave their hometowns to work in distant places, yet continue to feel deeply attached to the people they love. Some may live in grand houses and still feel empty inside, while others may possess very little yet feel complete because they are surrounded by those who matter to them.
His explanation helped, but only partially.
Certain truths cannot be fully understood through words alone. They must be lived.
As I grew older and life carried me further from childhood, I slowly began to understand the phrase more deeply. Experience became a quieter but more powerful teacher than any classroom lesson. Over time, I encountered moments of separation, uncertainty, and longing — experiences that revealed how strongly human beings search for belonging.
I came to realise that people often spend much of their lives searching for home without even knowing or finding it.
Some search for it in places. Others search for it in success, possessions, or memories. Yet many eventually discover that home is not merely a physical location marked on a map. More often, it is a feeling — delicate yet enduring — formed through love, attachment, familiarity, and human connection.
A simple house without warmth can feel empty, no matter how large or beautiful it may be. Meanwhile, even the most modest shelter can feel rich with comfort when shared with those we cherish.
As the years passed, I also realised something else: our understanding of home changes as we ourselves change.
In childhood, home may mean safety and dependence. In youth, it may become a place we long to leave behind in search of independence. Later in life, especially after many journeys and disappointments, home often becomes something we quietly yearn to return to — not always physically, but emotionally and spiritually.
Sometimes, what we truly miss is not the place itself, but the feeling attached to it.
A childhood home may disappear with time. Houses age, villages change, and familiar faces slowly fade away. The paths we once walked become altered by development or swallowed by nature. Yet the essence of home can remain alive within us.
Even today, when I think back to those years in the village, certain memories return with remarkable clarity. I remember the early morning mist over the paddy fields, the distant calls of birds at dawn, and the comforting sight of my parents working quietly together. I remember evenings lit by kerosene lamps, the soft murmur of conversations before sleep, and the feeling of security that surrounded me without my ever questioning it.
At the time, those moments felt ordinary. Only later did I understand how precious ordinary moments truly are.
Nostalgia has a gentle way of revisiting us as we grow older. It reminds us that much of life passes unnoticed while we are living it. The things we once took for granted — the presence of loved ones, familiar routines, shared meals, and simple togetherness — later become treasures preserved only in memory.
Perhaps that is why the idea of home carries such emotional weight for so many people. Home is not merely about shelter. It is deeply connected to identity, memory, and belonging. It is where we first learn love, trust, fear, hope, and human connection. Even when we leave home behind, parts of it continue to live quietly within us.
Looking back now, I realise that my younger self was not entirely wrong in believing that home was a house where parents and children lived together. That understanding belonged to the innocence of childhood. With time, however, life revealed deeper layers beneath that simple belief.
Home can exist in many places at once. It may appear in a village house, a lonely hut beside a paddy field, or the temporary shelter of relatives during uncertain times. More importantly, home often exists within the people who walk beside us through life’s changing seasons.
The older I become, the more I understand that human beings are not truly attached to buildings alone. We are attached to presence, to affection, to shared memories, and to the quiet reassurance that we are not alone in this world.
That, perhaps, is the true meaning behind the phrase I once struggled to understand in the school library many years ago.
Home is where the heart is — not because the heart chooses a particular place, but because love has the power to transform even the simplest place into something sacred.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at www.hayhenlin@gmail.com
