What is Furlough

What Is Furlough?
by Katrina P. Puckett

It’s a long plane trip
Back to the place you half-call home.
It’s all of your life
Condensed into two suitcases apiece.
It’s all of your family and friends
Ogling at you and saying,
“Oh, look how you’ve grown!”
It’s jet lag and reverse culture shock
And spending $300 on groceries
Because the aisles are limitless
As they abound in cereal
And candy
And all other wonderful treats.

It’s long car rides
To a different church every Sunday
And asking, “Do we have time
For one more Patch the Pirate?”
It’s finding license plates
From all the states
As you crisscross the land.
It’s praying to God
That your parents remember
American driving laws.
It’s the new animals
Along the side of the road
Because even squirrels
Are a bit exotic.

It’s going to a different church
And making new friends
That you may never see again
This side of heaven
(Unless it’s that lady
Who changed your diaper
When you were two!)
Making and breaking friendships in a day.
It’s watching the presentation
For the twentieth time
And whispering the script under your breath.
It’s hearing the same sermons multiple times
Until you could preach them yourself
If your dad ever got sick.
It’s standing by the display table
And answering a hundred questions
You’ve memorized the answers to.

It’s spending the night under a strange roof.
Maybe it’s a hotel room
Where you play with your siblings
With the few toys you brought
And drift to sleep with the lights still on
And the whisper of your parents.
Or maybe it’s a stranger’s house
Where you’ve eaten too much
And talked far past your bedtime.
And listening to the strange creaks
Of a strange house
Full of strangers
Who have become friends.

It’s growing attached to the foreign homeland
Where you’re a stranger who blends in with the crowd.
It’s missing your home in the foreign land
Where you’re a stranger who sticks out in a crowd.
It’s learning you have one home
Or two homes
Or no home.
It’s sharing experiences with those who marvel
At what to you is ordinary.
While you marvel at their ordinary lives
And wonder what that stability
And monotony must feel like.

It’s wondering if anyone here feels like you do
Until you’re at that missions conference.
And you meet another MK
From halfway across the world,
And even though your cultures differ,
Suddenly you’ve found a heart
That understands your joy and your pain.
Because just like you
They’re home yet they’re not.

It’s getting on that plane
And saying good-bye to what you gained
And going back to everything you left behind.
It’s straddling two worlds
No matter where you go
Because your heart is split
Between them both.
It’s the beauty and the ugly
All rolled into one.
That is what furlough is.