The Downside To Living Abroad

While most of us choose to immigrate to foreign lands for a life of better prospects and opportunities, the definite downside to it is being too far away from one's homecountry and being unable to travel on whim, thus missing out on births, deaths, weddings, funerals, festivals, sundry celebrations, you name it! Of course, there are other negatives like missing one's friends, families, local ethnic food, previous work, familiar hometown neighbourhoods, etc., but in my opinion, the one that sucks the most is not being there for family events like births, weddings, and funerals. A very steep price to pay when you make the move to foreign lands and then unwittingly become a victim of circumstances that decidedly prevents you from visiting home when need be!

The reason that has prompted this blog post was that my beloved niece (the first grand daughter in our family) Sasha (Chinky to us) got married yesterday to Jeevan in Bangalore, India, and I was unable to be there for the joyous occasion. The best I could manage was talk to her over the phone and then keep thinking, "Oh, by now they must all be at St. Mark's Cathedral ... now my brother must be walking his little girl down the aisle ... now he must be giving her away ... now the Bishop must be solemnizing the wedding ... now all the guests must be proceeding to The Capitol near Vidhan Soudha for the reception" ... and so on. Not adequate enough to compensate for my actually being there! Anyways, for very many reasons that can't go on a blog, I was unable to make it and that's that! But here I am, wishing our "Angel Baby" (that's what I used to call her when she was a roly-poly infant!) and her new husband all the happiness that life can bring and many, many years of togetherness and companionship!!!

Just like this wedding that I missed, I also missed my nephew Julian's wedding. Now he's the proud father of two beautiful girls, both of whom (and his wife as well) I have seen only in pictures. He is now in Australia, and I'm not sure when our whole family will be able to get together, with my sister in California, one brother in Oman, the other in England, and myself in Vancouver! I was unable to attend my mother's funeral because I had just visited her in hospital a couple of months before her death, and it was impossible for me work-wise to return once again to bid farewell to her. The same was the case when my dearest father-in-law passed away. These are times I wish I simply hadn't left home. The distance is too great, the circumstances too difficult, the practicalities too hard, and the heartache too intense! I am not even going to go into the other factors that I mentioned earlier; perhaps in yet another blogpost than this one, because there are just too many of them that I can think of. The list is too big, as I grapple with life in my new country, continents away from my homeland and loved ones!