Essay:
Coming Home
By Bella Hernandez, 15
What is home? Home is where one belongs. Home is where the heart is. It can be a comforting place, a person you are most happy with, or it can be the house you live in. It can be anything you want it to be. For me, home is my passion, playing softball.
Home is on the field when I’m in full gear behind the plate catching. I belong here. I am happiest here and when I am playing the sport I love in my favorite position, there is no other place I’d rather be than right there in that moment. That’s why when I got injured, it felt like my whole world came crumbling down, because I had just lost my home. I was homeless.
A little over a year ago my family was put to the ultimate test. My mother was going to be gone for some time. She had just gotten fired from her job and was going to be sent to prison. The first thing I did after crying my eyes out was go for a run. I didn’t know where I was running to; all I knew was that I had to run away from all the madness going on at my house. I ended up the softball field. The gates were all locked, so I hopped the fence to get into the field, sitting down behind home plate. I sat there because that is where I am calmest; where I am in control and it was my safe place. After all, for me, home is where the heart is. I sat there for a long time just thinking about what my life was going to be like when she left, how hard it was going to be and how my family was going to survive. I was questioning how we were going to handle my mom being gone and her not running the
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