Every Sunday, Elene would sit by her window in Milan, pen in hand, writing letters in perfect script on creamy stationery. She had been doing this for 12 years since she first left San Pablo, Laguna to work as a caregiver in Italy.
Her letters weren’t just words. They were a lifetime, a bridge connecting her heart to the family she left behind. She wrote about everything: the old Italian woman she cared for who loved opera, the taste of espresso she was still trying to like, the snow that fascinated her the first winter, and the loneliness that crept in when the city went quiet at night.
Elena was 29 when she left the Philippines. She had a degree in education and dreams of becoming a teacher. But with three siblings in college, a mother with diabetes, and a father who struggled to keep their small farm running, she made the hardest choice to pause her own dreams and work abroad.
She found work through an agency and landed in Milan, where she began caring for Signora Benedetta, a widowed elderly woman with early-stage dementia. At first, the language was a wall. Elene didn’t know Italian, and the old woman didn’t speak English. Their first few weeks together were filled with gestures, frustrated sighs, and awkward silence.
But time taught them both patience.
Elena learned Italian slowly, first through television shows and children’s books, then through conversations with other Filipinos at church. Benedetta softened, too she began showing Elena how to cook risotto and telling stories about her childhood during World War II. Over time, they developed a rhythm that felt almost like family.
Back home, Elena’s sacrifices bore fruit. Her siblings graduated two became nurses, one a civil engineer. Her parents were able to renovate their home. Every balikbayan box she sent home carried not just gifts, but hopes shoes for her nephews, canned goods, winter jackets they didn’t need but loved anyway, and always, handwritten letters.
But the loneliness never disappeared. There were birthdays she missed, funerals she could only attend through video calls, and milestones she could only hear about secondhand. When her father passed away during the pandemic, she grieved alone in her room, holding a candle and whispering prayers into the night.
Still, Elena endured. She found strength in the friendships she built her Filipino church choir, her landlord who treated her like family, and the community of OFWs who understood the ache of being far from home.
One spring afternoon, Signora Benedetta passed away peacefully in her sleep. Elena mourned her like a grandmother. She stayed in Milan a few more months, unsure of what would come next.
Then, her youngest sister sent her an email: “Ate, may magandang balita kami. Gusto ka naming pauwiin. Kami naman ang bahala sayo ngayon.”
Elena stared at the screen for a long time, tears streaming down her face. For the first time in years, she felt the pull of home calling stronger than ever.
She packed her bags, including her last stack of letters.
Elena was going home not just as someone who had worked abroad, but as someone who had fulfilled a promise, carried her family through hardship, and finally, was coming back to herself.
