The moment I found out I was returning to Afghanistan, I couldn’t stop thinking about my house. I still remember how I used to dream about my home. I remember the day my dad received a phone call from my uncle in Afghanistan asking us to come home, and how excited I was.
The flight seemed to take forever. My cousin was waiting for us at the airport. The ten-minute drive home felt like ten hours. Because I was so excited, I kept asking in English over and over: “Are we there yet?” My cousin had no idea what I was saying because he didn’t speak English.
“We’re here,” my cousin finally said he turned onto our street. I closed my eyes so that I would be surprised to see my home. The car stopped, and as I got out, I had to open my eyes so I wouldn’t trip.
My sister and I stood in front of the gate holding each other’s hands as our hearts beat faster and faster. We waited for my cousin, who had gone through the back door to open the gate. We kept on saying to one another: “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.”
The door to the gate opened very slowly. I realized my cousin was teasing me by opening the gate slowly because he knew how desperate I was to see my house. “Open it already!” I yelled at him, and within a second, the gate was open. My eyes were searching the sky to see my house, because from what I remember, my house was really big. But all I saw was sky….
My big smile and excitement stopped and my heart stopped pounding. I thought to myself, where is the house? I looked down and there it was. But what happened to it? Why was it so small? I started walking through the entrance of the house when I realized I was already there.
It used to take me twenty steps to reach the house from my front gate. Now it only took me nine steps. I thought to myself, did I grow so big that my house looks like a dollhouse to me? It’s really hard to describe what I saw and what I felt: the walls were closing in on me; the roof was about to fall on me; it took me two seconds to go from one room to another. In short, I was shocked; I couldn’t think of anything; my mind was blank. I ran back to the yard and found my father. I start speaking in a tone of shock: “What happened to our house, Dad? Why is it so small? The house was supposed to be big. The walls were not supposed to be close to one another. The ceiling was not supposed to be so low.”
I noticed my father was looking behind me. I turned and saw my little sister was standing behind me and she had the same questions in her head too. Her eyes were full of tears. “Did the Taliban do this to our house?” she asked my father. We were waiting for my father to answer, but instead he laughed out loud. Taking us in his arms, he said: “The house has never changed. It has been like this since we first moved here.”
For a moment I didn’t understand what my father was saying, but then I realized that when we moved to this house, I was three years old and when we moved out of the house, I was seven years old. So, of course, the house would have looked enormous to a seven-year-old.
I still remember how heartbreaking it was to know we lived in a small house rather than big one. But I am grateful to God that we can now afford to buy our neighbor’s house and we can live in a big house. Finally!
By Aisha
What a wonderful depiction of a child’s perspective! Yes; things always seemed much bigger when we were kids. This writer beautifully describes the disappointment and tension of coming back home.
It iz great that ur gratefull. best of luck to you in your new home!
Aisha, This is a story we can all relate to so well. To hold an image in our minds about something only to find our minds often create what we want to see and not what is real. Thank you for your story.
This is amazing, but sad, being away from your home for so long, wow, I can’t even stand the thought of moving away from where I am now. When y our 7 Years Old, the whole world looks bigger from a 7 year old’s point of view.
This is a wonderful child’s eye view of the world. I particularly liked how you measured the steps it took you from the gate to the door — then and now. I hope you’ll write about your new house too.
I have very strong memories just like yours. I grew up in Los Angeles, near the airport. We moved from that area to a suburb when I was 4. Whenever we’d go to the airport, we would drive by the old house. One time, when I was in my late teens, I flew in to visit my parents and I asked to drive past our old house. As we drove into the old neighborhood, it was like something in science fiction. The shrubs were there, The trees, the house numbers on the curb but the houses were completely removed. Gone. Gone. Plucked up from the ground like carrots and then the ground smoothed over. You see, it was easier to remove the houses than make the planes quiet. The regulations said that the planes couldn’t interfere with people’s sleep or their hearing above a certain level. So, they removed the people. Weird.
Lovely. My heart and mind stood there with you and understood.
Your vivid imagination is beautiful, just as your writing. Keep them coming! I am saving this site to my desktop. I need quicker access!
when i was born i lived in a apartment to me it was really big. now i live in a house with my brother and tow sisters. it looks really small to me because we only have three rooms. hope you have a big house.