After a few days in Illinois, we finally go back to where it started for us … 36 years ago.

In December 1986, my dad started his masters at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, which is under the Trinity International University. The a campus is in Deerfield, a quiet town north of Chicago. He brought along with him my mom and me, who was barely a toddler at that time.

I only have vague memories — they feel more like almost-forgotten dreams — of our stay here. But the idea of us staying here has always been etched in my mind through the pictures in a photo album and the stories my parents would always tell.

So being here for the first time after we returned to the Philippines in March 1988, there’s just a magical feeling. To see the apartment where we stayed while my dad took classes in a nearby building, and the cafeteria where we would regularly eat meals … it just is a really good feeling.

I accompany my dad to the business office, where he asks for an alumni ID and a copy of his diploma since the original was swept in a flood. While doing his business, I explore the grounds a bit, trying to rack my brain to see if some hidden memory will shake loose. Nothing.

But at least, being here with my parents and sister, I am reminded of the place where I have had my earliest memories.

P.S. We also drove further north to Lake Forest to see the Lake Forest Hospital (now Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital). This was where my sister was born while we were living in the Trinity Campus.