Going, Going …… not yet Gone

It’s been a while since I last posted on my blog.  So much has happened that I thought I should start with a quick catch up. I’m sitting in my daughter Kiera’s sunroom (not very sunny mind you – the morning started with a few inches of snow) in Rockville, Maryland. I’ve been here for four months and am due to return to S.A. soon to tie up loose ends before our final move to the U.S. in August. But I’m jumping ahead, so back to the beginning.

Many years ago, when our neighbour bought the farm next door, he expressed an interest in buying our property as well and asked to have the right of first refusal. So, when we decided to put our place on the market in July last year, we informed our neighbour and braced ourselves for some unpleasant and lengthy haggling as he is a notoriously difficult person. However, we were taken completely by surprise by the lack of anticipated argy-bargy and by August we had agreed on a price and by September the deal was done and the farm sold. We moved into a rental in Howick in October and in November I flew to the U.S. to collect my green card, which took three months to arrive. Peter, who is on a different immigration timeline, arrived here at the beginning of February to await the arrival of his card while I return to S.A. at the end of this month. The U.S. government allows you 6 months out of the country on a green card, so I must be back here by August 2024 lock, stock and barrel.         

As I’ve mentioned before, the decision to apply for green cards was made during the COVID pandemic when Peter and I managed to get over to the U.S. despite all the obstacles thrown at us by the pandemic and the U.S. government. I can’t remember the exact moment when Peter and I both agreed that it was time to move on. With hindsight, it’s possible to see that there was a succession of occurrences which steered us to that conclusion and it all started with the COVID pandemic. Although it could possibly have been written earlier in the stars when our precious granddaughter was born in 2018.  

Up to then, we had been quite content to plod along into old age on the farm with regular visits to and from the kids in the USA. And then shit started to happen, one thing after another but we weren’t really connecting the dots at the time. For a start, the pandemic made travel between S.A. and the U.S. more difficult and our trip in 2021 was a COVID travel nightmare. What if this were to happen again, would we be prevented from spending time with our family?  I think it’s fair to say that COVID changed the way we thought about the future and made us anxious about being so far from our family. The thought that a global pandemic could come between me and my children and granddaughter filled me with panic. Also, the negative effect of power outages on the economy and the rising cost-of-living became a niggle at the back of our minds, exacerbated by the July 2021 riots. And then there was a growing concern that the farm was just becoming all too much for us to maintain.

As the financial implications of staying on the farm sank in, so too did the consequences of our social situation. Ever since the COVID lockdown, we had become more and more socially isolated. Our social lives just never went back to the way they were pre-COVID. We stopped entertaining during the pandemic and never resumed it. And we didn’t receive any social invitations in return.

During our trip to the U.S. in 2021, we mentioned some of these issues to the kids and they in turn expressed some of their concerns about us becoming reclusive as well as us living so far away from them as we get older. As observers from a distance, the riots and our isolation had spooked them. Kiera and her husband James very graciously offered us the most precious gift possible, the gift of living together with them as part of a family again. Until then I hadn’t realised just how much I missed that. The devastation of the empty nest was a distant memory; I had moved on. What I did know though was that whenever anything like visas or the pandemic stood between me and my children, primal fear hit me like a ton of bricks. So, in 2021 Kiera began the process of petitioning for us to get U.S. residency with the plan that we would live with them in Maryland once our visas were approved.

Two and a half years after Kiera began the process, I have my green card and Peter’s is being processed. It’s been a long, drawn-out, expensive, frustrating and stressful process. And through it all we have not once spoken to a human being in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Our only American human contact was at the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg where we had to go for our interview and hand over original documents. Thank goodness Kiera and James (our son-in-law, who also happens to be an attorney), were available to advise and support us every step of the way. We could not have done it on our own.

I don’t think that I (aged then in my early 60’s) had a clue as to what I was letting myself in for when we made the decision to emigrate. Yes, I understood the implications at a conceptual level but had absolutely no idea how it was going to affect me emotionally. I knew that leaving the farm was going to be a wrench but I had prepared myself. I had assessed all the pros and cons ad nauseam and knew that even if we didn’t get the green cards, staying at the farm was not feasible due, in part, to escalating costs and increasing isolation. However, I think it’s fair to say that, despite knowing what I knew, it still went ahead and broke my bloody heart.

You know how unhelpful it is when you’re feeling down and some well-meaning person suggests that things aren’t that bad and that there are others far worse off than you? Well, I thought that if I just tallied all that’s positive in my life, it would help me move on. But that only served to pile guilt (for not appreciating what I have) on top of the feelings of sadness.

What I did not anticipate were the feelings of loss. I’ve lost my home and sense of place, and given that so much of my identity was tied to our rural lifestyle, most importantly I’ve lost my sense of self. It feels a lot like the empty nest syndrome all over again but this time it’s me doing the leaving. The thought of starting again, of redefining myself, feels overwhelming. Yes, it is a privilege to be given this opportunity and I am so grateful for it but it’s not going to be easy, not by a long shot. I do appreciate that the only constant in life is change and that when times change, you have to roll with it. However, I just didn’t realise that it’s impossible to roll without getting bruised.

I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it. I have learned this, but like everyone, I learned it late.

Beryl Markham: West with the Night

A Shropshire Lad, XL by A.E. Houseman

Into my heart an air that kills  
  From yon far country blows:  
What are those blue remembered hills,  
  What spires, what farms are those?  
  
That is the land of lost content,
  I see it shining plain,  
The happy highways where I went  
  And cannot come again.

• 

•