Forever in a daughter's heart

One of the hardest things about being an expat is being away from your parents. We miss birthdays and special moments, and just sometimes a joke that was shared when you weren't there. I have loved all the adventures and the experiences I have had over the last 12 years, but that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about my parents all the time and missed them. I have always made sure I traveled home at least once a year for minimum month at a time to see my parents and family, not because I felt I had to, but because I wanted to see them. After having my own daughter and family, I can understand why my parents always worried about me and missed me. For the first time in almost 3 years, I had to be away from my little girl who just turned 3. The reason I was away was to visit my dad who was in the hospital with serious respiratory issues. It is hard being away when they are healthy but even harder when they get sick. What can we do as an expat, as we feel helpless? Call and be around 24/7 to talk to and order and organise things as much as we can. That is what I always tried to do. I was calling the hospital every night around 2am US time to check on my dad and then be able to let my mom know how he was. On the whole flight back to the US, I was worried, sad, scared and nervous. I wanted to see my dad get better and truly hoped that he would. I knew him to be a fighter and so that is what he would do. He would fight for his himself, his wife and his family to get better. Some times someone can only fight so much and then we have to accept that they fought for us as much as they could and that was ok. Now we have to do our best to support our mom and make sure she is ok, while remembering our dad.

Now, the challenge I have is how to be the best mom to my little girl, and still be a good wife and good daughter to my mom. I didn't know a lot about my father's father, and I want to make sure my little girl always has pictures and knows stories about her Papa. It's important that his drive to never give up, amazing kindness, and success is shared with his grand daughter. My interest in travel, was sparked from my dad who used to travel the world in the Navy SeaBees and brought back money and stories he shared from his travels. I still have this little bag with all the money and while pulling it out this past month, I remember the interest and curiosity of what these places were like that he had visited. I still remember the story of my dad going to Sydney Australia when he was on R&R from the Vietnam War. We had been to the same places and had exactly the same pictures of Bondi beach, just about 40 years in between.

We have so much pressure on us to be a great mom, and there is this extra added pressure of an expat mom that only those of us really understand. We aren't wrong for doing this, we are just choosing different paths, which never means we don't care or love of parents, siblings and family we have left behind.

I will always be daddy's little girl and will forever love and cherish the moments we had together.