Everyone Says Home Is Where You’re From. At 72, You Learn the Truth

When I left the Philippines, everything I owned fit into one suitcase. 

I met my husband, Brian, when he was stationed at Clark Air Base. 

He spoke about a future where children didn’t have to worry. 

And at that time, safety mattered more to me than romance.

We moved to the West Coast. 

When our first son was born, Brian wanted to name him Brian Jr.

I wanted to name him Alon – something that carried the ocean in its sound.

In the end, we chose Brian Jr. 

To me it was another thing from home I couldn’t keep. 

Homesickness stayed with me for years. 

We couldn’t afford visits. 

I missed birthdays, funerals, ordinary Sundays. 

The Filipino community – church kitchens, potlucks on June 12th – kept me standing. 

But Brian was a good man and my only honest companion here.

I made leche flan for his birthdays. He bought apple pie for mine.

He didn’t say much – but I knew he loved me.

Then he passed away, faster than I was ready for. 

The house grew quiet. 

Our children grew up and left. 

I had no husband, no family around.

I only had community in the church gatherings, nothing to support me at home. 

And that quiet forced me to look back at the girl I was before marriage. 

I found my old notebooks again.

Pages filled with fragments: meals, memories, half-finished thoughts.

So much life, written only for myself.

Women who crossed oceans – we rarely write ourselves into history. 

And one evening, I saw an ad for Memowrite, promising a simple process to write a book about your life story. 

It got me curious.

I didn’t want to stare at blank pages for hours – I needed some help and encouragement.

Memowrite asked 50 perceptive questions I had never been asked. 

It helped me remember not just my life – but the lives around me. 

The women who came to the U.S., who carried so much and said so little. 

Writing didn’t feel like work. 

I felt relief with every question that I answered. 

Every sentence I held back now had a place to live. 

The whole process, from writing to holding a printed book, took me about a month. 

I brought my book during one of the church potlucks. 

Women in my community saw themselves on my pages. 

Some cried. Some said, “I thought no one noticed how hard it was for me.” 

That’s when I understood what I had done. 

I gave not only mine, but all of our stories a place to live. 

We had things to discuss, to laugh and cry about. 

Now, I feel settled in a way I never expected. 

For the first time, I feel fully at home – here. 

Memowrite made that possible. 

Not by rushing me or changing my voice. 

But by finally asking me to tell the story only I could tell.