SOCIETY: THE DISTANCE WITHIN FAMILIES
I am an immigrant, and live with the guilt of one. My parents passed away when they were in their mid-60s. I never thought that I’d be in a position where I’d yearn to go home to Pakistan, but would be prevented by the fact that there are no parents to welcome me home.
Hence, every May and December I go into a bit of depression, desperately yearning for the sounds and smells of Karachi. The family get-togethers, the friends reunions, the weddings, the eating out, the traffic, the shopping, the lazing around at my parents’ place and all the wonderful paraphernalia that comes with having parents alive and well in Pakistan.
Tragically, I can never enjoy those moments again. It is an elusive joy that will never be mine.
Being away from elderly parents is a burden, and often a guilt, for those living abroad
There are two sides to the issue, i.e., my side and the side where elderly parents, or parent, wait in Pakistan for their diaspora children to visit, but the kids don’t visit often — for lack of money, bonding and official leave, but never for a lack of excuses.
Many others like me yearn to go back home, but don’t when there is no parent to greet, welcome and spoil you. And if there are no siblings living in Pakistan either, the frequency of visits becomes less, and the length of the trips shorter. Everyone who matters seems to have immigrated. Hence the trips are mostly coordinated: ‘Let’s all go together.’
Regardless, the homesickness hits me twice a year, hard and strong. I find myself melancholic and nostalgic, longing for my parents to be alive, and missing all that should have been mine. When I was younger, I used to wonder why my parents’ friends who had immigrated, and whose parents were no more, did not come to Pakistan as often. Now I know!
I’ve now come to understand that growing up in a nuclear family unit is elemental to having a sense of belonging. Once that is missing or displaced, and if the permanent residence of an individual is elsewhere, the sense of belonging is entirely shaken up.
Yes, we still love going home to connect with friends and extended family, but the main element — parents — is missing. What’s the flip side to this? Grown up kids who live abroad don’t visit their ageing parents living back home or don’t visit often enough.
Minhaz Siddique, married for 33 years to a physician, is a stay-at-home mom in New England. She has not visited Pakistan often. Talking about her family dynamics and infrequent visits to Pakistan, she says, “Putting off going to Pakistan is never a simple question of procrastination but, more often than not, one is trying to juggle many issues. Finances, coordinating various schedules in the family, the daily grind that only someone walking in our shoes would understand. And these are just some of the reasons.”
She says that everyone would want to go back as often as one could, but life has a way of trapping one in their environs. “There is the inherent struggle to keep whatever remains of our Pakistani culture intact in the future generations, while also realising that the kids are an amalgamation of both cultures,” she says. “Their struggle to please us is as real as our struggle to raise them with the values we grew up with. Going back requires a lot of physical, mental and financial preparation. The gruelling flights, the struggle to coordinate job schedules, the fact that the only thing that ties our children to the old country is us.”
Narmeen Khawaja has been married for over 22 years, and lives on the West Coast of the US. “The charm and romance of my newly married life made transitioning to a foreign land bearable,” says Khawaja, a stay-at-home mom. “Before I knew it, I was caught up in the humdrum of adult life. My homeland turned into a fond memory. As the years passed and nostalgia set in, I would take much-awaited trips back home, but not as often as I would have wanted to. As time passed, going back home somehow always took a backseat to responsibilities and obligations that were paramount and banal at the same time. My one consolation is that my parents and siblings visit me periodically, bringing with them the warmth and familiarity of my motherland.”