I Got A New Perspective On Love, And That Was On A Bus Ride.

Everyone got a heartwarming story to share, and this is mine

Photo by Rasheed Kemy on Unsplash

It was winter 2016, and the bus I’d been waiting for to take me back home had arrived. At some point, I noticed the person sitting next to me was elderly, probably in his 70s, and looked in an unhealthy condition. But what caught my attention is how he was intensely reading, his head deep in the pages of a book detailing the French language, and he only stopped reading to take notes from time to time.

Meanwhile, there is me the shy little boy wondering to himself why this grandpa would waste the little time left for him on this earth learning a new language!!! of course, I kept staring at him out of curiosity until he noticed my crooked face and smiled at me while pointing at the book saying it’s good to learn new things every day.

His sweet smile set comfort in my heart, and because of it the shy little kid in me vanished, and I was able to make a conversation with him about how it’s hard for me to believe he’s learning an entirely new language just for the sake of it. He put the book aside and told me he’s learning French because his daughter moved out to Paris with her husband, and he’s planning to go over there to spend the rest of his days with her.

When the bus arrived at his station, he looked straight into my eyes with a serious face and said the words which I will never forget:

Home isn’t the country where you’re born or where you live

Home is the place where you love and be loved

Right after that, he was gone, but his heartwarming words with that smile on top of it never left my soul, and when the bus started moving again I looked out of the window at all those people roaming around and questioned myself, am I really on my way back Home??? if not, then am I working hard enough to be Home???…. To find that Home???

* What can you learn from all this??

1. If you feel you are not being surrounded by people you love and love you back, then you need to work on identifying your tribe because that’s where you belong, and then find the means required for you to be among them, and work on it.
2. It’s never too late to learn and work on the things you want or rather for the people you love. Age is just a number and saying you don’t have time is just an excuse.
3. Always be curious to get a new perspective on things.

I wrote this article in honor of that random grandpa I met on the bus, and I like to imagine he’s babysitting his grandkids and reading them a French story every night before bed, with that very same sweet smile on his face.