Homecoming

Chapter 1: Embracing the Pain

When I was younger, my mother told me to embrace the pain. Whether it came from experience, someone I knew, or even if I caused it myself. I often brought problems to my life. Maybe it was about the attachment with the pain as it made everything feel real.

Without a break, I reminded myself of the pain as I exhaled.

The pain came in different forms. There was the slight pang, the throbbing kind, the sharp paralyzing one, and the most universal, the type that every person had to deal with every single day.

My pain was the kind where I blocked everyone out. Now, it was too difficult to ignore that I embraced it as much as I could, with all the courage that I could muster. Little by little, the pain would someday lessen its grip on me. That was something I longed for, but the funny thing about pain was that it never ran out. Life always had this unique and terrible way of making more.

I lived away from home for more than five years. I put miles between me and my past. I thought that it was a sense of liberation that I needed. My hometown felt smaller; the familiarity of it all sent tingles to my skin. The anxiety crawled through my arms, wrapping them like an itchy cast. I wasn't injured in the slightest. Maybe just emotionally bruised.

I couldn't quite believe that I was back in LA.

The cab driver looked at his rear-view mirror and gave me a welcoming smile. The friendly gesture didn't help me relax because he seemed to be the chatty type. A variety of key chains hung and dangled on the mirror moved along with the car's motion. Not that we moved so much because the traffic trapped us. LA traffic was the worst.

I noticed that he had glanced at an inappropriate amount since he picked me up at the airport. He must have sensed my uneasiness.

"Coming home from a trip, sir?" The cab driver spoke with a thick accent, and his tongue rolled on a few words.

"I haven't been home in a while, actually," I fretted, with much more force than I initially anticipated. I was even surprised that I managed to say the words out loud.

"I hope that the reason you're coming home is for something good."

If I had been in a better mood, I would have explained the reason for my eventual homecoming. Since I didn't want to answer any unwarranted questions, I went for a shorter version of the story. The version that I had practiced in the bathroom mirror right before I went to the airport.

"I'm here to visit my dad." I supplied, which wasn't a lie.

Two days ago, I got a call from one of the nurses at Valley Medical, and she informed me of my dad's condition. She didn't say much on the line, other than that it was urgent. Her voice was flat and not at all comforting. For someone to be the bearer of bad news, I would have expected her to be calm. But she didn't even bother. It sounded like she was bored and lifeless. For a moment there, I thought I spoke to an auto-generated hotline.

Press one for the bad news. Suppose you want to end this call, press two. To book a flight back home, press three.

My older brother convinced me to take a trip home and check out on our dad. He pressed three for me. If that was even a thing, I just knew that he would have done it in a heartbeat.

As I weighed my options for three days, manically pacing through my New York apartment, I found myself flying a thousand miles across the country with three suitcases and a backpack.

"I'm hoping that your father is well." The cab driver responded as he made a turn to the hospital. The music quieted the cab driver's voice as the radio blasted a familiar tune.