What Home Reminded Me About Who We Are

There are journeys we take because we want to go somewhere.

And then there are journeys that take us somewhere so that we can remember something we had forgotten.

I recently returned to Marobala (a Village outside Polokwane in Limpopo) , my birthplace.

I went there without much opportunity to write. In fact, there were days when I could barely open my laptop.

Yet I returned with more reflections than I could have gathered by sitting behind a screen.

Perhaps that is what happens when we stop trying to write and simply allow ourselves to live.

Marobala gave me very little time to write.

But it gave me plenty of time to collect.

The Open Gate

Life in Marobala is different from life in Pretoria.

In Pretoria, if you want to visit me, it is better to let me know first. Otherwise, you may arrive at a locked gate and leave without seeing me.

In Marobala, my childhood friends simply walk in.

No appointment.

No prior warning.

No message asking whether I am available.

They walk in because the relationship itself seems to be considered an invitation.

At first, I found myself comparing the two lives.

One has boundaries.

The other has openness.

One protects privacy.

The other assumes familiarity.

But the longer I stayed, the more I realised that perhaps the real difference was not the gate.

It was what the gate represented.

An open gate seems to say:

You still belong here.

And perhaps that is one of the things we slowly lose as life becomes more structured.

We protect our homes.

We protect our time.

We protect our privacy.

All of these things have their place.

But somewhere along the way, we must be careful not to protect ourselves so completely that people no longer know how to reach us.

The Two Litre Coke

One day, an old friend asked me to buy him a 440 ml Coke while I was going to the shops.

He was not sitting alone.

So I bought a two litre bottle instead.

My thinking was simple.

There were other people with him.

Let everyone share.

He was so thankful.

It made me wonder whether gratitude is always about the size of the gift.

Perhaps sometimes it comes from knowing that someone saw beyond what we asked for.

He asked for something for himself.

I saw a circle.

And I widened it.

I did not know then that this small moment would become part of a much larger lesson.

People Who Still Remember

During my stay, I met a high school classmate whom I had not seen for more than thirty years.

I recognised her almost immediately.

She was less certain about me and needed confirmation.

Time had changed our faces.

But it had not completely erased our recognition.

We were simply happy to see each other again.

I also met an old homeboy whom I had not seen for ages. He had once provided a referral when I needed assistance for my mother.

The years had passed.

The relationship had remained.

I also met a former colleague from another chapter of my life.

We had worked together many years ago.

He reminded me that most of the people we once knew at that workplace are now pensioners, and that if I walked into that station today, perhaps ninety nine percent of the faces would be new.

Yet when we met, there was happiness.

There was recognition.

There was history.

These encounters reminded me of something:

Time measures how long we have been apart, but it does not always measure how deeply someone has been written into our lives.

Some relationships do not require daily conversation to remain meaningful.

They simply remain quietly available.

Like wells.

We may not draw from them every day, but when life becomes dry, we may discover that there is still water there.

When We Stand in the Middle

There is another memory from home that I cannot leave behind.

At a funeral, I found myself between an uncle and a nephew who were in conflict.

The situation could easily have become another fracture in a family already dealing with loss.

But somehow, both sides accepted me as the middle ground.

I chose to take the blame for the sake of sanity.

Not because proving who was right was more important.

But because sometimes peace requires somebody to stop asking:

"Who is right?"

and start asking:

"What will bring us back together?"

Eventually, the two were reconciled.

That experience made me think differently about the idea of an umbrella.

We often imagine an umbrella as something that protects us from what falls from above.

But sometimes an umbrella is a person who is willing to stand in an uncomfortable place so that others can find shelter.

Sometimes we become the space between two people.

Sometimes we absorb a little discomfort.

Sometimes we allow ourselves to be misunderstood.

Not because we are weak.

But because the relationship matters more than the victory.

Perhaps that is another form of belonging.

Not simply having a place among people, but helping people find their way back to one another.

My Mother

But perhaps the deepest part of my return home was my ninety year old mother.

During my visit, I shaved her head.

Later, she asked me to cut her nails.

These may sound like ordinary acts.

But sometimes love hides inside ordinary things.

As children, we depend on our parents to care for us.

They wash us.

They dress us.

They hold us.

They cut our nails.

They protect us.

Then life slowly turns, and one day we find ourselves caring for the hands that once cared for us.

While I was cutting my mother's nails, she began telling me how she used to sit in the bath for a long time to soften her toenails before filing them with a rock.

I smiled.

What sounded like a simple story about toenails opened a small window into another time.

A time when people worked with what they had.

A time when a rock could become a tool.

A time that existed long before I knew the details of my mother's life.

While I was caring for her present, she was giving me access to her past.

Perhaps this is one of the greatest gifts ageing parents can give us.

Not merely their presence.

Their memories.

The Macadamias

At another point, I came across macadamia nuts that my sister had bought for my mother some time ago.

My mother could not eat them easily.

I managed to crack them open, and my mother and I shared them.

Then she said:

"Prepare some for your wife."

My wife was not far away.

She was in the house while my mother and I were sitting in the lapa.

Yet my mother's mind naturally widened the circle.

She was enjoying something with her son, but she remembered his wife.

Perhaps generosity is not always about having more.

Sometimes it is simply about remembering someone else while we are enjoying what is already in our hands.

I found myself recognising something familiar.

The same instinct had been present when I bought the two litre Coke.

Do not enjoy the good alone.

Widen the circle.

Women's Day

Then there was Women's Day.

My mother.

My wife.

My sisters.

Different generations.

Different relationships.

One family.

I remember thinking that the women deserved their shine.

I did not want the occasion to become about me.

But my mother was disappointed that I had not taken a photograph with them.

I understood.

Sometimes a photograph is more than a photograph.

It becomes evidence that we were there.

Evidence that different generations stood together.

My mother represented the generation before me.

My sisters carried another part of our family story.

My wife represented the family I had built.

And I stood somewhere in the middle.

Not necessarily at the centre, but as part of the bridge.

Perhaps that is what family is.

A bridge between what was, what is, and what is still becoming.

The People We Become for One Another

As I moved through these encounters, I began to notice something.

I was not simply being reminded of who I had been.

I was being reminded of who I had become in the lives of others.

To my mother, I was her son.

To my wife, I was her husband.

To my sisters, I was their brother.

To my old friends, I was the boy and young man they had known.

To my former colleague, I was the colleague from another chapter of life.

At the funeral, I became the person trusted to stand between two people and help them find their way back to one another.

Perhaps our identity is not contained entirely within ourselves.

Perhaps some part of who we are exists in the way other people experience us.

We are sons and daughters.

Husbands and wives.

Brothers and sisters.

Friends.

Colleagues.

Mediators.

Bridges.

Umbrellas.

And sometimes, we do not choose the role.

Life simply places us there.

The Journey Back

Eventually, it was time to return to Pretoria.

The open gate was behind me.

The lapa was behind me.

The old friends were behind me.

The conversations, laughter and memories were now part of the journey home.

But after arriving safely, I called my mother.

I wanted her to know that we had arrived.

I knew she could become restless if she did not hear from us.

And suddenly, something became clear.

The distance had returned.

But the connection had not.

In Marobala, connection may look like an open gate.

In Pretoria, it may look like a telephone call.

The form changes.

The love does not.

What Time Cannot Take Away

Perhaps we spend much of our lives becoming someone.

We become professionals.

Parents.

Spouses.

Leaders.

Authors.

Friends.

We accumulate responsibilities, achievements, possessions and identities.

Then, sometimes, we return to the place where people knew us before those identities had fully formed.

A schoolmate sees beyond the years.

A former colleague remembers the person who once worked beside him.

An old friend speaks to us as though the decades between conversations never happened.

A mother still sees the son.

And in the middle of a family conflict, people may still look to us and trust us to help find a way back to peace.

That is what Marobala showed me.

I am not only the person I have become.

I am also the person people remember.

And perhaps I am also the person I choose to become for others.

The Umbrellas We Carry

We often think of an umbrella as something we carry into a storm.

But perhaps some umbrellas are people.

A mother who sheltered us before we understood what shelter meant.

A friend who remains available after years of silence.

A colleague who still remembers us.

A sibling who shares what they have.

A spouse who walks beside us.

A person willing to stand between two people until they find their way back to one another.

A community where the gate does not always need to be locked.

These people may not always stand beside us.

Yet their influence travels with us.

Perhaps some of the strength we use to survive today's storms was built by people who helped us through storms we barely remember.

And perhaps sometimes, without realising it, we become umbrellas for others.

Pause for Reflection

Think about the people who helped shape the person you are today.

Who remembers you from before the titles, achievements and responsibilities?

Who remained available even when years passed between conversations?

Who once sheltered you?

Who have you now become a shelter for?

And when conflict appears between people you love, do you always need to prove who is right?

Or can there be moments when peace is worth more than being right?

The Quiet Truth

Sometimes going home does not teach us something new.

It reminds us of something we had slowly forgotten.

We may have moved away.

We may have changed.

They may have aged.

The houses may look different.

The roads may have changed.

The faces may carry the marks of decades.

But something can remain.

Belonging.

Memory.

Love.

Recognition.

Responsibility.

And the quiet knowledge that we are not entirely self made.

There are people whose hands, words, sacrifices, friendships and forgiveness helped shape who we became.

The Quiet Question

When life has changed us, moved us, aged us and taken us far from where we began:

Who are the people who still remember the person underneath all those changes?

And perhaps the deeper question:

What kind of person have we become in the lives of those who remember us?

A Final Thought

I went to Marobala thinking I was returning to my birthplace.

Perhaps I was.

But I discovered something more.

I was returning to the people who helped give birth to the person I became.

My old friends.

My schoolmate.

My former colleague.

The homeboy who helped when my mother needed assistance.

My sisters.

My wife.

The family members who trusted me to stand in the middle when relationships became strained.

And my ninety year old mother, whose hands once cared for me and whose memories I am now privileged to hold.

I left Marobala physically.

But I did not leave empty handed.

I carried recognition.

I carried memories.

I carried gratitude.

I carried responsibility.

I carried relationships that time had not managed to erase.

And I carried something else.

A reminder that some of the best reflections are not written when we sit down with a pen.

They are collected while we are living.

For days in Marobala, I barely had time to open my laptop.

But life kept opening pages for me.

A friend walked through an open gate.

A bottle of Coke became a lesson in inclusion.

A face from thirty years ago became a lesson in recognition.

An old colleague became a reminder of another chapter.

A broken relationship became an opportunity to build a bridge.

My mother's head became an opportunity for my hands to serve.

Her nails became a doorway into her memories.

Macadamias became an invitation to widen the circle.

Women's Day became a picture of generations standing together.

And a telephone call from Pretoria became a reminder that distance does not have to mean disconnection.

Perhaps that is what home ultimately means.

Not merely the place where our story began, but the place where we remember who helped write it, and what we are called to become for others.

And perhaps the greatest blessing is discovering that even after we leave,

some doors remain open inside us.