Member-only story
Love in these Times of Involuntary Separation
It’s 4am and I am awake, sitting up in bed with my eyes illuminated by the light coming from my phone screen. I am on a video call with my partner, sleeping beside me are our children. On her side of the world, it is 10pm. We catch up on the events of our different days, in-between jerky network reception that often causes frustrations and unnecessary arguments. Eventually, we say our goodbyes, my day about starting, hers about to end.
I send her a message on WhatsApp, “TTYL” before dropping my phone to embrace the day — one more day coming on to the 4 years we have lived apart.
This is the life of millions of people the world over as they leave their homes in search of a place of peace, running away from the graveyard of dreams their home countries have become; separated from their families by space and time, yet bound by the rules of cohesion that families ought to follow. Sons and daughters that can no longer be with their parents, parents that are no longer physically present with their children, and siblings that only interact by voice and sight on a screen.
The rationality of this choice is often crystal clear to those who have had to make it. On one hand, they stake all their chips on the gains this exodus promises and often, what appeared dead on one patch of earth now seems to thrive in another…
