Hello,
This is something I wrote a couple of months ago and I would like to share with you.
It's 6 Dec 2011 at 13.24PM. I'm writing this from my office in Riyadh. I have been here for 4 years 4 months and a week. I'm 28 and a half years old. Looking back at the time right before I came to Saudi makes me feel how much older I've become since moving to Saudi. Being here promoted me to meet people from all around the world, the scum of people, the elite of them and the average ones. I've gotten to know other cultures and traditions that I wouldn't have experienced if I still at home. Now I feel more responsible. Now I have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of life. I feel that I've grown another 24 years here, as if I've learned here as much as I had learned during my past 24 years in Syria.
I left my parents and family at home. I left them to time to grow them rather old and to sicken them. I left them to medicine to heal parts of their bodies and poison the rest. I was always afraid to receive a phone call from home with bad news. Therefore I called my home quite often so they didn't have to call me and hence I receive almost no calls from them. The few times my mobile phone rang and it was a call from home, I felt anxious and picked up saying "hello" in a worried tone concentrating on the voice tone of the caller. There was nothing too serious with those phone calls. But the phone call I had hoped not to receive I received from my only brother, who lives here in Riyadh. I was visiting a friend of mine and while I was talking to him, I was considering bringing my father to Riyadh to treat his tracheal infection, my mobile phone rang. It was my brother. This time, and for some reason, I felt that he had bad news, but I didn't expect it to be that bad. He told me with a crying, chopping tone that my Dad has passed away. I cried and went to see him and arrange the closest flight booking for the both of us. My dad passed away and the last time I saw him was 6 months before. When I first came to Saudi, my contract with my past employer forced me to stay in Saudi for straight 2 years, which was too long. I hadn't seen my family, relatives and friends for 2 straight years. In my first vacation to Syria and upon receiving me in the street in the front of my house, my dad hugged me and squeezed me strongly. Nobody ever had hugged me that strongly. We missed each other a lot. My sister told me that my Dad had lost 20KG from an obvious sickness. My Dad is gone now. I still have the fear of receiving a phone call that carries bad news. I lost one parent, and I didn't want to lose the other parent. I'm still too young to deal with it. My mother has diabetes and hypertension. She had a blood stroke once. I'm afraid she'll leave soon, perhaps too soon. I still need her. Recently, my maternal grandma, who I used to stay with for 2 years, was in the hospital for low blood sugar levels in her blood. Two days later, she recovered. In my last vacation home, I visited her on the first day that I arrived and it was comforting to see that she is as good as she was when I left her for the last time! I was looking at her lips moving while she was talking to me which tells that there was still a soul within her. Seeing an old lady in her eighties full of life and enjoying good health relieved me a lot and gave me a push forward, a push toward life. That helped me not to be too much worried for the other members of my family. I was also happy to see my mother, sisters, and my paternal grandparents all doing well! Faith, family, health and social life are what give our life a flavour.
Being an expatriate abroad without your family deprives you of times that cannot be compensable. We are abroad because we want to have a better financial life, a better study, to run away from a dark past, to experience something new and unique, or any other reason, but we shouldn't stay away from home for long. Home is Home!
Mind Abroad / Soul Home
WOW!
Thank you so much for sharing, I can relate to experiencing such feelings. An emotional thread you provided here, very honest. InshaaAllah (God-Willing)you will not receive another dreaded phone call.
hows your family dealing with the recent political instability, hope all is well with them!
Aminstar2 wrote:Hello,
Being an expatriate abroad without your family deprives you of times that cannot be compensable. We are abroad because we want to have a better financial life, a better study, to run away from a dark past, to experience something new and unique, or any other reason, but we shouldn't stay away from home for long. Home is Home!
Home is where my Heart is.... Well Written man !!!!
Its true i agree @ Aminstar2. Home is Home, everyone missing there family, friends and dear one, one day everyone have to go from here living beyond taking only memories, its life, after all are human beings have the same feelings. 
Btwn-Fear-N-Hope wrote:WOW!
Thank you so much for sharing, I can relate to experiencing such feelings. An emotional thread you provided here, very honest. InshaaAllah (God-Willing)you will not receive another dreaded phone call.
hows your family dealing with the recent political instability, hope all is well with them!
Thank you for your sweet comment!
My family is safe so far. The majority of people residing in the quarter where my family live are regime supporters, and that keeps our quarter safe, with less electricity and water cut-offs, and everyday necessities are more available that they are in other anti-regim areas.
Amin
saimans wrote:Home is where my Heart is.... Well Written man !!!!
Thanks
That's True!
And my soul is at home!
Amin
wilson_derry wrote:after all are human beings have the same feelings.
Thanks for your comment.
You mean: Human beings could have similar feeling toward certain things.
Amin
@ Aminstar2 Human beings have same feeling towards society
No doubt, Home is the Best.
However, the only sure thing in life is Death.
We must all be prepared for it, be it our or our loves ones and friends.
musicman wrote:No doubt, Home is the Best.
However, the only sure thing in life is Death.
We must all be prepared for it, be it our or our loves ones and friends.
You are right! I totally agree!
Amin
amin, i was moved by your post and admire your courage to express what's in your heart. i am sorry you lost your dad and i hope you are able to find comfort in memories and experiences you shared with him. i think we honour our loved ones by continuing to live whilst not forgetting. keep him alive in your reflections and cherish the parts of him you inherited (personality traits etc). i do admire expats for the strength it takes to uproot yourself and build a new life somewhere else. home is a large part of our identity and your family are irreplaceable. God bless.
@Amin May God Have Mercy on his soul. I am sure we have all lost loved ones? Time is a slow healer as we move along.
I first came on a 2 year contract in 1979 and am still here having spent half my life in KSA. Its more like home for me now. I can spend the rest of my days here without a problem if they will renew my Iqama, at 64+, come December 2012.
Great write-up Amin!!!
The constant fear of loss, the losses we bear while being abroad, our similar emotions....this write-up has a LOT.
Felt sorry for the loss of your dad. No matters how many years you grow up, the placid & soothing shadow of the dad (and even his memories) remain the same!
Though, I agree with the last paragraph. Do look at this reality with a different angle also. It's not only WE who live 'deprived-of'; they miss us too. It's not only the financial support that our loved one back home need from us, they do need our presence too.
Irony: We get back to live with them when we turn old enough. Then we expect that they'll give us all the love and care they can? Is it fair to expect them care for us like that when the whole life we've been making them miss us; esp when they really needed us?
In my view, it is absolutely necessary to keep a balance between many different things.
Many Thanks Amin for sharing. I moved me as well.
Very very touching !!! But remember Show must go on !!!
Thank you all for your replies! Sharing that with you and reading your comments mean a lot to me.
I didn't intend to share a sad story or to be negative. I just wanted to share something I felt.
I'll post more Things soon.
Amin
Aminstar2 wrote:Thank you all for your replies! Sharing that with you and reading your comments mean a lot to me.
I didn't intend to share a sad story or to be negative. I just wanted to share something I felt.
I'll post more Things soon.
Amin
Personally I Will be waiting for ur more posts.... And I hope things are Perfectly fine back @ Home !!
@suzie Que
Thank you for your sweet comment. Yes, I do find comfort in the memories and experience I shared with my Dad. I'm trying to keep him alive in my reflections and I cherish the personality traits of him that I inherited and those I had learned from him. I keep in touch with the people he liked. I'm trying to keep doing all the good he was doing during his life. I'm proud of him.
To be an expatriate is a chance to see life from another corner, to give it one more dimension, to learn things you wouldn't learn staying home, but as you said: home is a large part of our identity and family is irreplaceable since we as human beings get affected the most by the things we have had or done for the first time. The first people we got to know were our family. Our best friends are usually our childhood friends. Our memories in the neighbourhoods of where we lived are unforgottenable. But, I like it here now. I love my City, Damascus, the most though.
Amin
@saimans
Thanks! The show will go on.
Amin
TheLegendLeads wrote:It's not only WE who live 'deprived-of'; they miss us too. It's not only the financial support that our loved one back home need from us, they do need our presence too.
I totally agree with that! We and our families & friends back home miss each other and wish we could be all in one place.
Irony: We get back to live with them when we turn old enough. Then we expect that they'll give us all the love and care they can? Is it fair to expect them care for us like that when the whole life we've been making them miss us; esp when they really needed us?
We we were younger our parents cared about us and loved us. When they get older they need our care and love which we are supposed to provide. They still love us though, and they would keep caring about us if they still can.
In my view, it is absolutely necessary to keep a balance between many different things.
I totally agree.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
@musicman. Thanks.
I exactly understand what you mean. I have uncles and cousins of uncles who have been in Saudi since 1978 and 1975 and for them it is more like home now. They could spend 4 to 8 straight years here without taking a vacation to home. They are now in their late 50s or early 60s. Their children were born, lived and studied here. When you spend more than half of your life abroad, it becomes hard to get back home and see that almost everything you liked there has changed. My dad stayed here from 1980 to 2005, but he enjoyed spending the last 6 years of his live in Damascus and the countryside of Damascus where we originally came from. He retrieved the old times and memories. It wasn't just memories, we together enjoyed living those memories again in almost the same way he had them before being an expat.
I really hope you get your Iqama renewed so that you can stay here since you're comfortable that way. There must be a way to do it even if you are 64+. There is a Saying here: “If you have connections, you can buy ice in hell.” I know the saying is exaggerating, but at least it gives an idea about how things could be managed here.
Amin
Hi Amin..just read the posts..very very touching...
Its my first day in saudi arabia ;-) am trying to move my family here as soon as possible..but 'home is home'..as rightly said...
@shanty64
Thank you!
Good luck with moving your family here. That is a great step!
Amin
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