The long road to the US

My family has long had a high degree of affection for Americans. Having spent significant chunks of our lives living the overseas life, we met other nationalities doing likewise. Right up till our final years overseas, we gravitated towards Americans, finding the Brits somewhat dull and dour.

Indeed, one of my sisters married an American and, after 30 years of marriage, recently became an American citizen. She held on to her British passport for entirely sentimental reasons, as she knew she’d never want to return. This despite the PITA it was to renew as she (like myself & our brother) is a naturalised British citizen, being the third generation to be born in India.

Having worked in a school, she has been pledging allegiance to the US flag for ever, yet every 10 years we’d go through a drama, as she would go all ostrich about it, and I would get a call from her husband or father-in-law, begging me to swing in to action to arrange the renewal before it expired, and things got really complicated. The thing is certain documentation is needed – documentation which my sister keeps losing. Fortunately my father entrusted me with copies – many many (certified) copies.

The reason she finally decided to apply for US citizenship was so she could sponsor my mother.

After my father died, my mother moved into a gorgeous 2 bedroom apartment for the over 60s. Spacious enough to cope with most of the contents of a 6-bedroomed house being squeezed into it, there was a lively community, helpful managers, lots of organised social events, friendly residents, and loads of invitations to do this, that or the other.

But my mother couldn’t settle. She visited my sister in the US for 3 months, and decided to move there. After speaking to friends here, she changed her mind, because it was no easy decision to make – with 3 children, 3 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren all living in the UK, as opposed to 1 child and 1 grandchild in the US. But still, she couldn’t settle, and eventually decided that a move to the USA was the right one. For the record, all her children agreed that it would be the best choice – for her.

Then Covid happened…. one month after her application was submitted! While the application weaved it’s slow and tortuous way through, my mother has vacillated back and forth on whether this was the right decision. We’ve had to focus on the reasons why this is the best choice for her: that she won’t be living alone, and will be living with family (actually with her favourite child), as my sister has retired, and they have space for her in their home; that she’s always felt like a fish out of water in England, never at home, which feeling has grown exponentially since my father’s death; that she’d actively chosen American rather than British friends throughout her life overseas; that she has few genuine friends still alive and living in the UK.

There’d been a point when we’d begun to doubt it would ever happen, especially frustrating as many things which would’ve improved the quality of her daily life were put aside – things like getting a cat…

Then, quite suddenly, we were invited to attend an interview. Of course it wasn’t quite that straightforward, as many other steps had to take place first. Even after the interview, there were hoops to jump through, but – remarkably – for a bunch of old, unfit adult children, my siblings and I were successful.

My mother has now been in the US for nearly a year, and is pretty well settled. Her stuff has arrived and been shoe-horned into my sister’s home, and her UK apartment is being prepped for sale. And yet it genuinely still feels like no time at all since we were fighting bureaucracy – it might be time to admit that we’ve been scarred for life by the experience 😀

Can you imagine moving half way across the world? What might cause you to consider a big upheaval such as this?

© Debra Carey, 2023