There was a recent death in the family, our cousins grandmother who had lived a beautiful life watching her children and grandchildren all grow into successful people. The truth is, I don’t know what she really felt as she saw her children (and grandchildren) move across the world, only to call on important holidays (if they remember) to wish her well. I hope she knew how important and loved she was, even though a handful of her grandchildren (and great-grandchildren) could not pay their final respect.
Immigration can be funny, and to be fair it is a different journey for different people. Some folks don’t really think about the years they miss in the lives of loved ones that are still at home, and for others its all they think about, but, that’s life.
I met E during my travels and she’s one of the most professionally accomplished 20 year old I knew at that time, fast forward to our whiskey chat in the beautiful Accra town in Ghana, I remember hearing E complain about how controlling her parents can be, and how she was “extremely relieved” to be leaving home for her MSc in Texas, USA.
Here’s a little backstory, E is from a wealthy Nigerian family, her school fees were paid in full for her MSc in Texas ($50,000+), she had always gotten everything she needed from her parents but she wanted more. E wanted to be free from the “free help” she had always gotten from her folks because it came with a lot of baggage, and by baggage I’m referring to something I would never understand because I never had folks who could cough up $50,000 for my school fees.
The main story here is that some folks are running from home, which makes it perfectly okay for them to feel “extremely relieved” when presented with an immigration opportunity, and there’s another group of people who are “extremely relieved” to be able to provide for their families because they immigrated.
If it’s not obvious already, maybe I should point out that I keep meeting people (not purposely) and they are really the basis of this entire series, it’s like filming a movie and scouting for actors, without knowing what is going to be in the script. Again, I’m unsure how you stumbled on this 3rd edition of the Life & Immigration thing, since it’s all over the internet, so you can read previous editions here: Life & Immigration: 1, Life & Immigration: 2.
