by My sister introduced me to the saying that home is where mum is. In 2005 my mother moved from Dagoretti in Nairobi. I say my mother because my sisters were all out on their own and I was heading to college in Eldoret, about 300km away.
When I think about it now, I am not sure how she did it! How do you pack over 20 years of accumulated belongings (and clutter)? How did she decide what to leave and what to carry to her new house on the other side of the city — a much smaller house designed just for her in retirement?
Perhaps a way for her to cope with an empty nest.
Dago, as we called it, had always been home… until it was not.
I think somehow she worried about us and if we would call her new place home. Hence the assurance from my sister, that home is where mum is.
Mum’s stay in that new house was brief. About five years later, she moved again, this time to her dream home where she lives to date. I love it there for her. She is extremely settled in her small community of church friends and neighbors.
As usual she has accumulated more daughters as she does wherever she goes. I love to visit her there. She’s now keeping chicken, has a small kitchen garden in her backyard and a beautiful veranda at the front — just what she needed in her sunset years. It has just the right amount of space for barbecues and hangouts for our very grown family.
I moved out of home to get my own place in 2009 with much encouragement from my mum. I had just landed my first job and she has always encouraged us to be independent. In that season, when my sisters would ask me if I am going home, I would always ask,” Home to my house or home to mum’s?” 😂.
It was a confusing three years having my own place. It was a nice small house just for me, but now, when I think of it, it never did feel like home. Not the way my mum’s house felt. Last born manenoz, maybe?
On my way back to Mombasa from Nairobi in June last year, I could not help but think how home is has evolved for me in the last 10 or so years. After three years of living alone, I got married and started a new home. Now home is where my husband and children are. Right now that is Mombasa. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would say am going home and that home is in now Mombasa.
My boys on the other hand are not convinced Mombasa is home. Two years down the line they speak about when they return to Limuru. It cracks me up because right now my husband and I are learning not to put permanence to anything because of how we ended up in Mombasa.
There is no guarantee that after Mombasa we will be going back to Limuru. Who knows, our next assignment could be to another country. Nothing is impossible with God.
Therefore, I have come to accept that home is a person more than it is a place. That is why, I now more than ever agree with my sister’s words that home is where mum is. Do my boys feel the same? Maybe.
Working from home has made me realise that the boys do love having mum home. As soon as they get to the house, the eldest will ask, “Is mum home?” and bound into my bedroom where I am working from most of the times.
When I posted, “What is your definition of home?” on my WhatsApp status the other day. the responses I received confirmed that home is more about the people than a building. The people mentioned were not even necessarily family or blood relatives. In the words of one friend, “The people who bring warmth, love, gentleness. In every way.”
That’s why it does not matter where mum lives, wherever she is and is at peace will always be home. Be home for someone today.
