The Long Way Home

There is a beautiful song by the British rock band " Supertramp ", called "Take the Long Way Home". It is on their sixth album, "Breakfast in America", released on March 29th, 1979. I love the album ,and all of its songs, but the one that gets to me every time I hear it, is "Take the Long Way Home". The existential anguish expressed in the song take on an even deeper meaning to me as someone who has been living outside of her country of origin, Belgium, for 37 years now. I have been a citizen of the US for 19 years, have been married to an American born and raised citizen from California for 27 years, and we have raised together our son who turned 21 this summer and is an art student in his third year in college. Along the way, the parents I grew up with, and both my younger sisters, died tragic and heart wrenching deaths. My family fell apart like things fall apart in a war, and there was nothing but dust and rubble and death left when it was over. A suicide at 35, a death of a deadly cancer at 44, two small kids left behind with more questions than answers, Alzheimer's, divorce, alcoholism, betrayal, deceit. Did I leave anything out? But life goes on, so to speak. Your heart can be broken in a dozen or more pieces, but it will go on beating anyway. I have focused all my energy and strength on my small family with my husband and son. We are strong and united. That does not mean that it is easy to start from scratch, and without any support or interest from my husband's family. They might as well live in Australia for all the kindness and caring they have shown over the years. That is hard. No family on either side. Rejected by one, ignored by the other. Such a deal. So I take great pride in the fact that my husband and I are still going strong after almost 30 years, and that we have a great relationship with our intelligent and talented son. I am fiercely protective by nature, a bit of a tiger when threatened, and that feeling only became stronger as I fought hard for my and my husband's and son's dignity. Perhaps I feel so at home at my black baptist church for going on 20 years, because the African-American story in this country is one of forever struggling and standing up for dignity, acceptance, belonging, a long and hard search and fight for the re-integration and dignity of family life, hope, and future. Perhaps to some people the famous Negro spiritual song " Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, alone, alone", may just be another beautiful song, but to me, having been betrayed by my mother, and her family, and trying to make another country my own against at times discouraging odds, the song hits a raw and painful nerve. I am still on that long way home, sometimes the road is smooth and hopeful, other days it feels endless, empty and cold. I will not deny my life makes for an interesting perspective, with some very fascinating experiences, but there is a silence in me few can understand, a wound that never heals. It will be so good to go back to church, because it is one place where the warmth, compassion, spiritual wisdom and soul lifting music and its strength can recharge my battery and make me feel I matter after all, in spite of it all.