Travel history

Filling out our immigration application, I had to list my international travel from the last 5 years. How can immigration paperwork be so heartbreaking?

May 2014: our first trip to Singapore with a 10 month old Arhan. We left him with 6 adults and a pre-teen and took our first vacation after baby. I fell very sick and mostly missed Arhan much to Bharath’s disappointment. Ma was excited to spend time with him. She told me she sat with him on a couch by the window where the laundry was hung to dry. He reached for my pajamas and mumbled something like Amma. Probably his first utterance of it in his life and it was to my mother. We took this photo that she had framed and laminated for herself. She sent me this picture within a picture on whatsapp when she had it framed. This was the first photograph of the proud grandparents. 

Nov 2015: Arhan and I went to India for Sachu’s wedding. It was Arhan’s first trip to India. We spent a giddy week in Chennai and finally went to Mumbai where we were eagerly awaited. Didi flew down alone from Singapore. Ma looked beautiful in the wedding wear. 

I took her to Goa with me to visit my bereaved friend Sasha. She was very happy to accompany Arhan and me to Goa. I knew it wasn’t an easy trip for me and I was glad to have her unassuming presence. We went to the beach one day. She spent the day chilling on the beach and then walked out to the water to dip her feet in. 

December 2016: I was desperate to make this trip. Yes we hemmed and hawed about expensive December India trips in the context of my in laws having had visited a few months ago. But I was yearning to see my parents. This feeling of foreboding had set in. Maybe it’s common with old parents far away but I didn’t know how real and imminent it was. It’s when we took the official family picture. It was also to be our last time together with her. She was busy but happy with us all near her. 

July 2017: I bought her fancy cheeses from Singapore. Baba had to throw them away after she passed away while cleaning out her refrigerator. 

October 2017: hours and hours with her in the hospital. The only visit that I spent every waking moment with her. Our last photograph with her as the immediate family. 

Nov 2017: My older sister and I cremated my mother after a 6 week and 30 year battle with liver disease. We had a shraadh. We had a memorial. We had an obituary. 

Who knew immigration paperwork could be so heart breaking?