This First Person article is the experience of Itrat Anwar, a newcomer from Bangladesh who now calls Steinbach, Man., his home. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see this FAQ. You can read more First Person articles here.
This Christmas, we hold each other close, thankful for the life we’ve built here in Canada. It’s a season of warmth, joy and togetherness, a time for family.
But for us, Christmas brings a deep sense of longing. This will be the fourth year we’ve spent it far from our parents, separated by thousands of kilometres.
We long for them to feel the warmth of their grandchildren’s embrace, not just through a screen, but in person. There’s still an empty seat at our table.
We’re surrounded by friends who feel like family and we remind ourselves often: We are lucky.
But even gratitude can’t silence some kinds of longing.
We laughed, we cried, we waved at the screen and pretended we were there.– Itrat Anwar
My wife, Halyna, lost her mother the same month the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, while she was pregnant. The grief, the fear, the constant air raid alarms — it was more than any heart should have to bear.
After days filled with uncertainty and danger, she finally escaped the war with a harrowing train journey, desperately seeking safety.
Halyna says those days were the most terrifying of her life, and she still has nightmares. She believes only those who’ve lived through it can truly understand the depth of that fear.
It was during this difficult time that Halyna met my parents for the first time in Bangladesh. Despite the heavy sorrow she was carrying, a bond quickly formed between them.
My mother welcomed her not just as a daughter-in-law, but as a daughter who had come home. The love and warmth they showed her helped soften the grief she had been holding onto.
For the first time since losing her own mother, Halyna began to feel a sense of family again, a feeling she had thought lost forever.
When we moved to Canada, we carried with us a simple dream: that one day, we would bring our parents here too, and be together again as a family — but life had different plans.
Just as we were searching for ways to make that dream a reality, we were blindsided by news that would change everything: my mother was diagnosed with cancer.
For months, she endured chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. Now, she’s undergoing additional treatments and continues to fight.
Her strength has always been an inspiration to us, but watching her go through this from across the ocean has left us feeling helpless. Sometimes, we believe the only reason she’s fighting so hard, staying strong, is because she wants to see her grandchildren.
The distance has never felt heavier.
Meanwhile, our children are growing quickly. Neither of them has met their grandparents in person, not once. Their relationship with them exists only through glowing screens and grainy video calls.
Sometimes, they hug the screen and call them “My nanu,” (grandma), kissing it as if trying to bridge the kilometres between them. It’s a bittersweet moment — sweet in its innocence, yet heartbreaking in the realization of how far apart we are.
Recently, my only brother got married. Even though we were so far away and it was midnight here, we watched the ceremony over a video call. We laughed, we cried, we waved at the screen and pretended we were there.
Life here in Canada is good, truly good. I work to support the family, while my wife cares for our little ones at home, eagerly waiting for the day when our parents can finally be here with us. She’s also ready to return to work, so we can better manage financially.
Some days, though, are hard. The weight of rent, bills and car payments can feel overwhelming. Flying across the world to visit our parents isn’t something we can manage right now, and bringing them here still feels like a distant dream.
We worry about their safety in Bangladesh. The year 2024 was chaotic, and the political situation is growing more unstable. The upcoming national elections could bring even more violence.
The images from this time are unsettling, and if you saw them, they would scare you. I’ve grown up amid political unrest, and it has always been volatile. I was lucky to survive several close calls myself.
We dream. We hope. And we hold our parents close, across continents.– Itrat Anwar
This fear, this uncertainty, is something we carry with us every day. And though we are safe here in Canada, the ache of being far from our loved ones only grows stronger. We know we’re not alone in this. So many immigrant families carry the same quiet pain.
Still, we imagine the day when our children will finally run into their grandparents’ arms, not through a screen, but in a real embrace — one filled with warmth, tears and all the years we’ve been waiting for this.
Next year, we’ll celebrate together. Maybe next year, those empty spaces at our table will finally be filled. And until then, we dream. We hope. And we hold our parents close, across continents, across screens, across every mile between us.