The Namesake

by Jhumpa Lahiri

“Do yourself a favor. Before it’s too late, without thinking too much about it first, pack a pillow and a blanket and see as much of the world as you can. You will not regret it. One day it will be too late.”

And then the house will be occupied by strangers, and there will be no trace that they were ever there, no house to enter, no name in the telephone directory. Nothing to signify the years his family has lived here, no evidence of the effort, the achievement it had been.

I think being an immigrant must teach you so much about the world and about human beings, things you can’t understand if you are born and raised and live your whole life in one place. It must be an amazing experience in many ways, but it has a price.