Going home
When the world looks completely different.
Tomorrow morning, I’m flying home to New Zealand to visit my dad. And although we only have a few short days together, it’s a trip that has been a long time coming.
It’s also the first time I’ve been home again since my mum passed away six months ago and the truth is, the world looks completely different to me now.
For so many years, New Zealand was always my home—even though I’ve lived more of my adult life overseas. But the way I would describe trips home were just that: going home. With our families forever based there, the tie to our place of origin has always been steadfast.
But as soon as my mum got sick—in the midst of the 2020 Covid lockdowns—home took on a new meaning. At first, it was the one place in the world where I longed to go more than anywhere else and yet, due to the incredibly strict rules put in place by those in power, it was also one of the most difficult places to reach. There was no question that I had to ‘go home’ when I received news of my mum’s diagnosis, but getting there involved an incredible amount of hoop-jumping, bureaucracy and unfortunately, emotional turmoil due to the decision I had to make to leave my husband in Sydney and take our newborn baby with me into quarantine overseas.
For the past six years, the whole concept of ‘going home’ has therefore shifted entirely. While the Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions eventually eased, for six months during 2020–2021, we lived in New Zealand out of fear for what leaving again might do. We’d already been separated once and now, knowing how sick my mum was, it felt like we were tied to this place through no choice of our own.
While I’m so grateful to have had the time and privilege to travel back and forth, I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t also taken a toll. Especially over the last 12 months. The novelty of travel wore off quickly and when the whole focus of my ‘going home’ was to care, I felt very adrift and very alone.
And so this trip feels different. And it’s not because I’m no longer grieving. The truth is, going home now without Mum at the other end feels so difficult to even comprehend. I know it’s going to be immensely difficult being in her space, with her scent still somehow embedded in the house and traces of her everywhere. How could it not be discombobulating?
But for the first time in a long time, the anxiety I feel about going home is no longer about what awaits me there. Instead, it feels tethered to what I’m leaving behind.
So many friends have asked me if I’m ready to go home, if I’m nervous. But I truly feel like I’ve managed to reframe what lies ahead. It’s no longer about bracing for inevitable loss. We’ve already lost her. Now, the sadness comes from having to leave my husband and my children and the small life we’ve built together—and strangely, that’s a nice anxiety to have.
When Mum got sick, I subconsciously and instinctively blocked out my role here as a mother myself. I handed the reins over to my husband with full confidence. Actually, I didn’t hand anything over at all—I didn’t need to. I simply upped and left as often as I had to, and many times, with less than 24 hours notice. I didn’t allow myself to think beyond the next few hours and I certainly didn’t acknowledge what it meant to repeatedly have to leave my own children and miss their little lives while I desperately tried to hold onto my mum. I think if I had, it would have broken me.
So I compartmentalised because I had to.
But now, I’m choosing to be grateful. I know that there is heartbreak ahead of me, a tangible mirror to my grief being home again. But I also know that I will miss my children and my husband and my own life in a way I haven’t done in more than five years.
This time ‘going home’ is not carrying any expectation that I am there to care for anyone. I’m simply going home to be with my dad. To sit next to him and of course acknowledge all that we’ve lost, but also, look towards all we have left to live for.
