Chapter 47: From India, With Worry…

Today is Hallowe’en in Canada and the kids and I are all sad to be missing one of our favourite holidays, but it’s Diwali in India and it’s been a very special experience to celebrate it here in Kolkata with some family friends.

It’s funny to think back to my own childhood and the many hot potato phone calls on Christmas or Easter when I think it cost several dollars a minute to just get someone on an often unreliable landline.  By contrast, it’s pretty amazing that today’s technology has allowed my family members to get to know my kids virtually since they were born.  While I’m so thrilled to be able to finally make “real life” introductions, there is a bit of sadness that hangs over everything.  With high travel costs and what seems to be the complete unreliability of air travel these day, I’m honestly not sure how many more trips I’ll be able to make India while many of my older relatives are alive and healthy.  Mom’s situation has caused me to think about things like that more regularly.  I don’t mean to be depressing, but I guess I have a new perspective on life these days.

As I’ve been making the rounds of various family members in various cities, I’ve been able to chat with everyone about the dramatic changes I’ve made in my career and the big changes we have seen in mom.  I really hope this encourages them to reach out to her more and just keep talking with her.  Mom’s reluctance to initiate any kind of social contact means that I am spending a lot of time and effort in trying to get the social interactions to come to her…

I’ve been sending daily photo and story dispatches to our family WhatsApp group, and – again, thanks to the wonders of wifi – we’ve been able to speak to mom and dad nearly every day.  I really am enjoying this vacation and I’m starting to get excited about what my new world of work will look like when I return to Edmonton.  Still though, there’s an undercurrent of worry that I can’t seem to shake.  By the time we get back home, it will be three full weeks since we left – and that’s the longest amount of time I have left mom and dad since we noticed her memory changes.  I know nothing is likely to change overnight, but I just hope that she’ll be ok and dad doesn’t have to deal with anything too severe while I’m gone.

In the meantime, I am going to work on making sure I take the time to enjoy both the beautiful weather and the way all of our friends and family are treating us like royalty everywhere we go.  For the next few weeks, I actually have no responsibilities – honestly, other people are even taking care of feeding the kids!  I’ll deal with the real world when I get back to it…