Definition of Home

For Sameen Shaw

1

The word "home" has a very simple definition for you.

When you were younger, it contained a father who drove you to different baseball games and told you countless times that it was okay to make all the kids who bullied you pay through your punches and kicks, and a religious mother who was never there because she was too busy saving other people's lives --- too busy to notice your loneliness, and too ignorant to notice that there was something wrong with you. However, instead of feeling upset or craving attention from your mom, you just felt comfortable —-lying on the couch while listening to your father's busy footsteps in the kitchen and occasionally, the squeaking sound from the door signalling your mom's return.

On the night of your twelfth birthday and on the night that you were supposed to see your favorite superhero film with your personal hero, everything was covered in red: your hands, your favorite shirt, and your father. You stared at the man who was lying in a pool of his own blood with his eyes still open. You saw the life draining out of that hero of yours. You thought you would scream, cry, and act like a normal person who just lost their father; but you didn't. You just felt empty. You stared at that body for what felt like a century before the police came. There was no tears in your eyes and no emotions in your heart. You knew you should scream and cry, but nothing was there for you to summon.

You sat there in that dimly lit room and counted all the little dents in the table while

answering the psychiatrist's questions mechanically. You looked up once a while to look at the scribbles he wrote down on that piece of paper. He does have a nice handwriting, you thought. Just like your father.

He showed you his notes and in clear italics, the word "Axis II Antisocial Personality Disorder" --- of which you did not even understand the meaning, yet you knew that those few words would haunt and define you for the rest of your life. You did your research, words like "aggression", "sociopath", and "lack of remorse" kept flashing up on your screen. A bitter laugh escaped your mouth -- seems like this diagnosis already put a big, red cross on your life before it even started.

2

So the decision to attend medical school was again, purely logical. After all, your mom is a surgeon, and at the same time, you just wanted to understand yourself a bit more.

The last night before you left for med school, you were lying on the couch and feeling its comfort for one last time, while your mother called you to your last meal at home. Both of you sat and ate quietly as usual, until she looked up from the plate and said:

"You don't have to feel pressured to come visit me if you don't want to."

You looked up to meet her eyes. You saw the same dark brown eyes and the same coldness you saw every time you look into a mirror. You always knew that there was no love in her marriage and that she only married your father because she wanted to escape the war. You always thought it to be perfectly natural because it was the logical thing for her to do. But in that moment, you suddenly realized that she wasn't ignoring you all along. Instead, she knew what it feels like to be numb on the inside. So she always understood you, even more than you understood yourself. But it was too late. You knew everything would not be the same from then on. The home as you knew it would no longer exist, and it would just be you and only you.

3

When medical school expelled you because they weighed your inability to love and care over your talent, you felt angry -- the only emotion that you have felt in a long time. So you turned that rage into punches and gunshots. You joined the military like your dad, excelled at all the skills, graduated top of your class, and did three tours. You felt comfortable in the chaotic battleground and found your perfect place --- a place where you don't have to process emotions and care about anything other than the mission at hand.