The Pull to Come Home

What is home? Many have argued that it is not a place – it is a feeling. A sense of longing, of belonging, of familiarity, of instant comfort. A place to go to in the depths of your being from any physical location. What if such a place existed, but you had never been to it before? For Mikayla Frigon, when she first arrived at Meher Center, the intangibility of her longing and belonging found an external manifestation. “I will never forget my first moments at Meher Center, Baba’s home in the West. The air was heavy with humidity but bright and full of life. So many trees! So much beauty and love all around me! I was extremely shy and awkward (and still am!), but this place was immediately my home,” says Mikayla Frigon.

Mikalya’s first trip to the Center was for Youth Sahavas in 1994. Before that she had heard about the Youth Sahavas as part of a group named Meher Miniatures which was a preteen and teen group at the LA Sahavas. A California resident, she dreamed of going to Myrtle Beach, not only because she had never been, but also because it was the place where her Baba lover parents had married and had their honeymoon on the Center.

She flew to Myrtle Beach with her best friend, Shireen. She remembers being picked up by the local Branch family and going to stay at their house for the night before Sahavas. She loved their house, she loved their neighborhood and she already loved Myrtle Beach even before stepping on to the Center. That night the unthinkable happened.. She had a vision of Baba. “There was a chair in the bedroom where Shireen and I slept at the Branch house. I was awoken in the middle of the night and I opened my eyes to find Baba sitting in that chair. As I remember, He looked like the Baba I knew or had seen in pictures from the 1960s. When I woke up in the morning, to my surprise, Shireen told me that she had seen Baba in the chair in the middle of the night as well! The only difference in her description was that she remembered a younger Baba,” recounts Mikayla.

After this outstanding welcome, her time at Sahavas was a true homecoming. “I made lifelong friends on that trip. I cried so hard at the Barn while saying goodbye to my new home and family.”

She returned in 1995 and then in 1997. Why the one-year gap? I jerked to ask. Mikayla straightened up in such a way that I knew I had unintentionally scrapped a wound. With much seriousness, she said. “I got into a lot of trouble at school that year and could not come. But that was the year that the sahavasees made a video for Baba’s sister, Mani. I loved Mani very much and it was a blow to have missed that,” she says. Mani died that year. The sadness that enveloped Mikayla created a deeper longing and accentuated the pull of living in Myrtle Beach. “From the beginning, I wanted to live in Myrtle Beach. I cannot explain it but I felt a strong pull, especially to the library. I wanted to work and help out at the Saroja Library.”

It took Mikayla twenty years to return. Her longing simmered for years until it came to a boil and she could not stay away. For three years between 2017 and 2020, she returned to the Center once or twice a year. During Covid, she started volunteering at the library by doing remote projects. “The draw to be near the Center became so strong that it consumed my every thought. I would cry and cry and just want to be there. Every day, in my mind’s eye I looked at the entrance of the Center, as if I were seeing it from the mall across the street.” Mikayla’s longing became an itch that she could not scratch. It was so deep that nothing would satiate it except to be here. It was time. Baba was undoubtedly calling her home.

Mikayla recounts with wonder how Baba orchestrated her exit from her old life and pulled strings together to settle her into the new life of her dreams. Within three months she was able to sell her business and her house! She moved across the country with her supportive husband, her mom and two cats. They now live fifteen minutes away from the Center.

Through the challenges of life and health, Mikayla has stood strong in Baba’s love. She is a dedicated volunteer at the library and also helps with research projects related to the library.

As we concluded our interview, we watched delivery trucks coming into the Center for the set-up of this year’s Youth Sahavas. It occurred to me that it’s been exactly thirty years since Mikayla’s first, life changing arrival. If she could, what would she say to the Youth Sahavas participants? “I would ask them to do something that I wish I had done: say yes. I would ask them to say yes to sitting with a stranger, say yes to playing volleyball, say yes to being on stage, participating in discussion groups and finding some time alone to be with Baba at His home.”

I think Mikayla did say yes. She said yes to Baba being the engine of her life. She attached herself to Him like a bogie and He eventually brought her home.