Homesick for Heaven

Homesick for Heaven

Coming back from Italy is never a soft landing. People assume it’s about the pizza, the wine, the postcard hills of Positano. They think it’s the ruins, the cathedrals, or the opportunity to pause from work, dishes, and daily routines. But it isn’t.

For me, leaving Italy always stirs something deeper, and this trip was more stirring than ever. Standing in that sacred place—where the sky looks hand-painted by God, where every evening feels like a huge blessing wrapped in golden filtered light—I become homesick for heaven.

Before I ever arrived on this earth, I believe there was an agreement. God had a plan, and somehow, I said yes. He knew exactly what He was doing when He chose my parents, knowing the lessons I would need: resilience, independence and prayer. He chose my partners too—every puzzle has its missing piece for a season—teaching me through the rise and fall of love. When those chapters ended, it wasn’t failure. It was the plan unfolding, one more invitation to grow, one more step toward becoming the person He sent me here to be.

When I arrived in 1961, I came here carrying a suitcase packed with gifts and plans. And my hope has always been to leave with that suitcase empty—every ounce poured out, nothing wasted—before I make the trip back home.

Italy makes me remember that, and I’m so fortunate to say, “every time.” But this trip especially. I came back different, as if the veil between here and eternity had thinned. Social media felt trivial. I felt like a visitor inside my own life, watching from the outside. A voice whispered: pay attention.

The first night, I sat on the edge of a bed in an unfamiliar rental and wept. Charlie Kirk had been shot. I cried for his wife, for his children, for a world that feels so dark and divided when “love your neighbor” should be the simplest truth and as easy as ordering groceries online. A few hours later, I fell down the steps in an unfamiliar Air BNB. By all measures, I should have been badly hurt. But I wasn’t. Not even close. We laughed about it later, but part of me knew it was something more than clumsiness. My first thought was: pay attention.

The next day we drove into the hills outside Rome and discovered the charming town of Tivoli, home to Villa d’Este with its waterfalls and sweeping hillsides. The contrast struck me—an extravagant retreat built centuries ago for a Pope standing beside a simple village where laundry lines swayed in the breeze. There was such a sense of peace there, the quiet broken only by church bells in the distance. Inside, I felt something awakening, like an unfinished song waiting for the next note, yet somehow already whole at the same time. For once, I wasn’t a human doing, I was simply a human being. Standing there, I longed to slip into that simplicity: a small room, daily cappuccinos, wandering the steep cobblestone streets with no agenda and no place to be—just watching life move at its own pace.

And in that longing, I realized—I wasn’t aching for Italy. I was aching for home. But not the one I came back to in Arizona—The real home...The eternal one.

We stayed in Rome for five days so we could live like the locals. We moved from one neighborhood to another just to feel the differences—the people, the rhythm, the way only a few miles could change the atmosphere completely. Everywhere we turned we were reminded of the city’s age.  Ruins scattered on nearly every corner, some marked, some not. The Aurelien Wall dating back to 275 A.D. I kept thinking about the power of those letters—B.C. and A.D.—and how they remind me that Jesus once walked this earth as human, just like us. What if we still used those sacred initials in our daily calendar—if people said “2025 A.D.” instead of just “2025”—would we live with more awareness of His existence and the impact on our eternal life? Would we be more careful with our habits, our choices, our words, knowing that every step we take is laying down our own cobblestone path back home?

There were grand attractions that millions of visitors make the first stop on their trip—the Colosseum, the Forum, the Pantheon. But for me, it was something else that made my chest ache on the last trip we took: riding a rented scooter down the Appian Way, the oldest road in Rome, the very place where Jesus appeared to Peter in a vision, calling him back to Rome—back to martyrdom. That is the kind of history that moves me. Not the adrenaline, but the weight of sacrifice. The realization that my faith exists because of choices made at such great cost.

Each morning we sat at our favorite street corner coffee shop in “our neighborhood.” We watched Romans go about their lives. People walking to work, walking dogs, running errands. They were doing the same ordinary things I do at home. But I kept wondering: do they feel it? Do they sense the magic woven into this place, or does it take traveling 6,000 miles to wake up to it? I hope not. I truly hope not.

I am so blessed to share these moments with someone who is captivated by all things Italy—its history, its emperors, its ties to the deep roots of Judaism…to Christianity. Our conversations before, during, and after the trip are so meaningful, and always seem to water something more in me, deepening this homesickness I carry for heaven.

One morning, as we sat with cappuccinos and a forbidden Danish in the shadow of the Aurelian Wall, a white dove landed at our table. I paused. A symbol of peace. I snapped a picture before it flew away, and in that quiet moment I couldn’t help but wonder: maybe this is a turning point. Maybe the world is ready for peace. I knew I had been for a long while. It felt like I had discovered a deep well inside me that would never run dry.

Michael and I still did the tourist things—racing through the streets on a rented Vespa by day, indulging in pasta, pizza, and Florentine steak by night. We drank Aperol spritzes at sunset, but even that felt different here. At home, it was a pause at the end of a buzzing day. In Rome, it felt like a reminder: this is the way life is meant to be lived—in the pause. The buzz and anxiety isn’t natural to us—it’s something we add on, like oversalting a good recipe. Our true state is stillness, simplicity, peace.

A few nights later, fate found us—as it always does. We had parked our scooter in an overcrowded area of Trasteverre, and before we knew it, thousands of partygoers poured into the narrow streets like ants at a picnic for a concert. We’d only been there thirty minutes when the crush of the crowd began to suffocate us. The energy was heavy and chaotic, nothing like what we were searching for on this trip. We tried retracing our steps, desperate to find the scooter and escape, but it was endless. The more we searched, the more frustration spilled over between us—sharp words, accusations, blame. That isn’t us. We don’t argue. We are respectful. But that night the tension around us worked its way between us. With each beat of the bass music I felt myself sinking deeper into the ground.

After hours of circling streets, exhausted, with phones dying and GPS useless, we grew desperate. I continued nagging Michael about finding a bathroom, snapping every ten minutes. It wasn’t my finest moment. Finally, we stopped to regroup on a bench, both of us drained and out of answers. In that pause, something in me shifted. I took a deep breath, stood back, and instinctively began humming the tune: “Peace Is Flowing Like A River…Flowing out through you and me…spreading out into the desert…setting all the captives free…”

Just moments later, Michael took charge. He walked up to a small pizzeria where Maximilian greeted us in the doorway. He asked if there was a restroom I could use. Max welcomed us in, offered his restroom, and insisted we sit for a meal. Then, without hesitation, he and Michael hopped on his own bike zipping through the chaos in search of our scooter. I stayed behind, surrounded by thumping music and drunken crowds pressing past the little pizzeria, but I wasn’t afraid. I waited. I sat still, and I prayed.

Max turned out to be more than a kind stranger—he was an angel. Not only did he help us recover the scooter, but he also gave us a private, unforgettable tour of Rome. He guided us to places most visitors never see, whisking us through secret entrances and quiet corners as if on a magic carpet ride. At one stop, in the Jewish quarter, a white dove landed on a fountain in front of us. There it was again: Peace… pay attention.

I placed my hand on a column more than two thousand years old and felt the energy. I wondered if those who walked by this every day even noticed the significance…the history…the sacrifice. Do they feel it—or is it like us passing another gas station or another grocery store, blind to what we have?

By the time the night ended, it was after midnight. Max serenaded me with “I Did It My Way,” a familiar song my dad used to sing at home, his tenor voice filling the living room from our old stereo console. So through Max, my dad showed up to sing to me on my birthday—such a gift.

We returned home at 3 a.m., speechless. The next morning we sat across from Santa Maria Liberatrice church with our cappuccinos, listening to the church bells ring out in full glory. We were still wrapped in silence, unable to speak about what had happened. Words seemed too small. Instead, each of us wrestled with our own private dialogue, trying to make sense of it, to step beyond judgment and simply accept it.

That night with Max reminded me: you can’t rationalize God’s work. It isn’t meant to be dissected or explained. It arrives in outrageous, unplanned, illogical ways—and if your heart is open, you don’t question, you just know. Max had no ulterior motive and no agenda. His intentions were pure, and I felt it from the moment we met. He was just a simple man doing God’s work.

The return home was a hard landing—and I don’t mean the plane. Every small conflict, every frustrating conversation felt unbearable, like I wanted to shake it off before it could touch me. I longed to hold onto that state of grace that touched me in Rome and swim in it forever. One evening, watching the sunset, Michael asked, “Do you think when you die you can visit all your favorite places?”

I paused. “I think when you die, those places go with you. They’re a feeling. You become them. So you’re always there.” Later that night, I thought about that conversation and I realized—I wasn’t just homesick for Italy. I was homesick for heaven. When you finally still yourself long enough, you can remember what it felt like before you came “here,” before life became noisy and heavy, and before you forgot how to hang onto that feeling.

My first morning back, I went to the gym, trying to settle my restless body after the jarring contrast of angry travelers and the rush of security and everyone’s faces glued to their phones. When I opened YouTube to accompany my workout, the first video that appeared was a memorial service for Charlie Kirk—100,000 people praying, worshiping, lifting their voices together. There was no pain today like the night I fell on the stairs. Was this the beginning of something new? Was this another white dove? I stepped off the treadmill and sat in the car and cried.

Later that night, scrolling through pictures from the trip, I felt it again. Normally photos are just a way to tiptoe back through memories, but this time it was more. I’ve always believed every day matters. But now I don’t just want to believe it—I want to live it. Not by rushing to do more, not, but by stepping back and doing less. By listening for the whispers that I want to hear clearly. How could I see His path if my view was clouded. 

So for now, with this harder-than-usual landing, I’ll set my screensaver to a picture of that cobblestone street in Tivoli—the one where a simple line of laundry swayed in the breeze and stopped me in my tracks. This little hack and that image will be my reminder to pay attention. To slow down. To notice what’s right in front of me and not let the noise of life drown it out. It will remind me of who I am, and of what rests beneath the ache I carry. Not just an ache for Italy, but for the awareness it stirred—the deep, quiet peace that whispers: pay attention. There is more that I now know is a homesickness for heaven itself. A whisper that this world is only a glimpse, and that the peace I touched there is the peace I’m meant to carry here until I finally find my way home.

Shelli Netko © 2025