Susan LaffertyWe move across the world. Connect with new cultures. Plant our lives in soil so different from what we’ve ever known before.
Where is home?
The question crosses our minds. Simmers. Hangs in the air.
If we put down roots here, what happens to the other places we’ve called home?
The conversation was one we had several times.
“People have black hearts,” she would say. “People have rotten hearts.”
She used the word that describes rotting fruit. Busuk.
The lines were forming to board several Air Asia flights out of Penang. I asked the woman behind me if this was the line for Singapore. Yes. She was also going to Singapore. She asked which seat I was in. 18B. Her seat? 18A.
Once we boarded, I found out she was traveling to visit her brother and sister who are now Singaporean citizens. I was going there to overnight with our daughter before heading to the US.
In further conversation, we talked about the weather and she said, “I like cold weather.”
In this tropical country? “Where do you go for cold weather?”
“London,” she said and shared that her other sister had lived there until her sudden death from cancer the year before. I told her I was sad to hear of her loss.
