The Last Goodbye - through the eyes of an expat (Part 3 - The End)

I landed in Doha on Thursday, February 27, 2014.  I'd mercifully slept on the flight; this made the 1-hour wait at customs bearable.

Landing in Doha ...

My flight was two hours early.  Since Smilin' Vic hadn't checked the flight status online, this meant no exuberant greeting party at the airport for me.  That was ok.  I was truly beyond caring.  The last goodbye had depleted me.  I waited about twenty minutes outside the airport for Smilin' Vic and Kiddo to show up.

When they finally rolled up, the first thing Kiddo said to me was "You look so sad, Maman."

I decided then and there that I had to smarten up.  My Dad wouldn't want Kiddo worrying about me.  I put on a happy face.

We got home, and I unloaded the clothes and gifts I'd brought back for her and Smilin' Vic.  They had wine and candles set up and ready for me, and we spent a few hours catching up as a family.  

Then we put Kiddo to bed and I proceeded to get toasted.

Not a nice thought, eh?  That I would land after three weeks from home and get drunk on the first night back ...  

But let's be frank, getting drunk's not that foreign to expats.  Amazingly, it's probably more common to expats living in the Middle East than to expats anywhere else worldwide.  And I guess I figured "If ever there was a time to get loaded out of my gourd, tonight's the night".  Having said my last goodbye and all, you know?

I'll admit I was sloppy.  Cried all the tears I'd kept bottled up inside and then some.  Expressed my anger at the world and allowed myself to shout out "Life's NOT fair!",  and "Only the good die young!"

I got Smilin' Vic to YouTube "The Highwaymen" and just about every song Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristoferson ever sang.  And I listened, and I drank, and I cried like a baby.

Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson perform the Jimmy Webb song "Highwayman" live. Filmed in March 1990 at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Highwaymen-Live/dp/B000CIXDDG

I slept until about 2 p.m. the next day, while Smilin' Vic carted Kiddo around to a school festival and a birthday party.  I woke up with a head that felt like led and a true sense of despondency.  But I soldiered on;  took a shower, prepared a nice supper for Kiddo and Smilin' Vic, laid off the booze, and steeled myself for the workweek ahead.

I returned to work on Sunday with greetings of "how was your vacation?" and "did you get to go skiing?"

I'd just spent the last three weeks in a nursing home with a father who could no longer walk, barely whisper, no longer sing.

I wanted to punch everyone in the face.

Instead I smiled and replied "it was just a tad too cold for sports".

I carried on for five full days.  Sunday to Thursday.  

Smiling.  

Wanting to punch everyone in the face.

On Thursday, March 6, 2014, I left the office at 17:05 and headed for the parking garage.  As I got into my car, at exactly 17:09, I heard a 'ping' on my phone.

It was a text from my sister, my mentor.  It read simply "Dad has passed away."

Gone?  Never!  He was invincible...

I drove home numb.  Apparently I called Smilin' Vic.  By the time I'd gotten home, he'd arranged for my flight back to Canada for the very next morning.  Seven days after having returned to the Land of Sand.  Fourteen hours mid-air.  Just in time to reverse the jet lag.

I didn't have to make a new list for Kiddo's school activities and lunchbox contents;  they could use the one I'd prepared for my last trip a few short weeks ago.

Upon arriving home, I proceeded to drink half a bottle of wine, type out and send two projects with "next week" deadlines to my boss, throw half my closet haphazardly into a suitcase, and inform Kiddo just before bedtime that I wouldn't be seeing her for the next week because Pepere had died and I had to fly out really early the next morning.  We'd talked a lot about the fact that he would die soon; she was sad, but 8-year-olds are amazingly resilient.

Keeping busy kept the tears at bay.  Everyone always says you should be prepared for these events as an expat, but I'm strangely glad I hadn't packed my bags, bought an open-ended plane ticket or thought the whole thing out that much.  The busy-ness halted the insanity.

I boarded my 14-hour flight the next morning.  I landed in Montreal.  My sister and brother-in-law picked me up.  I spent the night at their place, and the next morning we got in the car and headed out on the 9-hour drive halfway across Canada, headed to my father's birthplace and final resting place.

I gazed listlessly at the rolling, snow-covered landscape as we drove along silently.  I typed out my Dad's eulogy in the backseat of the car.  I held my sister's hand while her son and husband listened to music in the front seat.  And her and I ... well, we cried our fair share.

But we laughed too.  Quite a bit, actually.  It felt so good, on those last miles home, just being with family.

Uploaded by Adam Pietroń on 2014-02-05.

We spent the next few nights in a small motel in my Dad's hometown; all my siblings and me, a few nieces and nephews.  We mourned at the funeral home during the day and celebrated my Dad at night as we all congregated in my room.  We had a huge pajama party.  We laughed, we cried, we told stories.

Family Pajama Party.

Studies show that a Best Western double bed can hold 10 grieving family members ... as long as they're laughing and willing to forego comfort.

We stood together as they closed the coffin.  We cried together.  We held each other.  We supported each other.

We sat in the front pew as my sister read the eulogy with the voice of an angel.  We gathered with extended family in the church basement after all was said and done.

We got back in our cars the next day and headed back to Montreal.  And I boarded a plane a few days later.

Away from the pajama parties, away from the solidarity, away from the familiarity, away from my Dad.

Back to Doha.  Back to Qatar.  Back to normal.  The 'new' normal.  

Back to work.

If anyone at work asks me if I went skiing, I think I might just punch them in the face.

Goodbye. God Bless. I love you.  

The Last Goodbye - through the eyes of an expat (Part 2)

It's my amazing brother-in-law who had the God-awful task of driving me to the airport after my last goodbye to my Dad on February 26, 2014.

We sat awkwardly in the car at the first intersection ... bundled up in silence, twelve layers of underwear, and a parka as we willed the car heater to live up to its full potential.

The light was red.  I uttered my only words of the trip ... "This will be my one regret.  I've worked so hard to live without regret, but I can't forgive myself for leaving him."

Awkward silence.  Really nothing left to say after that ...

We drove on, and my brother-in-law walked me in to the Pierre-Elliott Trudeau Airport departures terminal.  Bless him.  My sister, my mentor, called from Toronto (she'd had to go on a business trip to Toronto the day before I left) as we were saying our goodbyes.  I choked up.  Tried to be strong for her and failed.  

Summoned up all my courage to avoid breaking down again in front of my brother-in-law.  Hugged him and thanked him for his amazing support through all of this.  Support to me, support to my sister, support to my Dad, support all-around.  

Ignored the tears in his eyes and the crack in his voice as he told me to be good, hug Kiddo and say hi to Smilin' Vic.  Focused solidly on the strength in his stance and the warmth in his smile.

Turned towards the Security check-in, but slipped into the bathroom first.  Once my bro-in-law was gone, went to get myself a double-double Tim Horton's coffee (bye-bye caffeine-free pledge) and snuck outside to sip on it as I puffed on a smoke or ten, forsaking the business class lounge for caffeine, tobacco and a "why bother?" attitude in minus 25C weather outside the terminal.

Boarded the plane with minutes to spare, chased a Gravol down with a couple of glasses of Rose champagne, and caught a tear-blurred view of the de-icing of our delayed flight.

Preparing to remove the ice so we can fly to the Land of Sand ...

Reclined my seat 'til it was flat, and fell asleep watching "Three Weddings and a Funeral".  It just seemed right.

Champagne and "Three Weddings and a Funeral" ...

For the first time in my life, I wasn't excited about heading back to Smilin' Vic.  Even the fact that I'd see my Kiddo in 14 hours after being gone longer than ever before didn't ignite a spark.  I felt truly, truly numb.

I considered my life ... an expat life.  

I wondered at the cost of travel, the cost of adventure.  I wondered what it all boiled down to.  I wondered if the only truly memorable thing about Expat-dom might be goodbyes.

It's been said that if we knew what fate awaited us, we'd never bother getting out of bed in the morning.  I guess that's kind of how I felt on that long, long, long road "home".

Landing .... in the Land of Sand.w

The Last Goodbye - through the eyes of an expat (Part 1)

I was fully determined to make my next post as morose as possible ... but my Dad just wouldn't let it end that way.

He just had to include talk of farts in our last goodbye.

I wanted to let the world - or at the very least my 16 faithful followers - KNOW how incapacitating, debilitating and earth-shattering a last goodbye could be for an expat.

I wanted readers to FEEL how powerless I FELT when I said my last goodbye to my Dad.  How I sat in the darkness of his room on a cold winter's night in Montreal.  

Him, sleeping in his big Lazy-Boy chair, holding my hand.

Me seated in a chair next to him, trying to come to grips with the reality that this was truly the last goodbye.

Me, praying that I would forevermore remember the feel of his hand wrapped tight around mine.  

Holding on while letting go ...

Him, rasping.  

Me, willing the thoughts and the love in my heart to reach through the darkness, through the cancerous pain that gripped him, through the murkiness of Alzheimer's in which he was drowning.  

Him, clinging to this blessed moment of peace enveloping him, dressed as sleep but actually concocted from a lethal cocktail of morphine and pain.

Two of my sisters, my brother and one brother-in-law seated down the hallway, allowing me a final 30 minutes of blessed quiet with this man to whom I owed my very existence.  Allowing me to close my eyes and shed tears in absolute silence as I tried to synchronize my breath to his.  Allowing me to pray to God in silence that I might find the strength to say the last goodbye to my Dad without shedding a tear so that he might believe this goodbye was simply a "good night" like any other that we'd shared over the last three weeks. 

Me and my Dad, seated side by side, so very like so many times past, yet so very different.  I'd never appreciated sitting next to him quite as much as I did on the night of February 26, 2014.  Knowing it was the last goodbye ...

He opened his eyes once and whispered to me that his wall was pretty full.  It was a wall that we'd literally plastered with pictures of friends and family.  I said: "Yes, it's a good wall", and he nodded.  "It's a good family."  And he nodded.  And he closed his eyes.

It's a good wall; it's a good family ...

Fifteen minutes before I had to leave for the airport, my Dad woke up, and I asked my family to come back in.  I didn't want him to be alone when I finally left.  Since he'd lost most of his voice by now (one of the sure signs that the end was imminent) and his ability to sing, we all sat in silence for a bit.  But my Dad could still whistle.  And so, despite all the healthy lungs in the room, it was he who - despite his crumbling lungs and pain-wracked body - finally broke the silence with a whistling tune.

I had put all my stuff outside his room.  When it was time to go I simply said goodnight and told him that I had to get to bed, hugged him, gave him a kiss and told him I loved him.  Because of his Alzheimer's, it was crucial that I not leave him with the pain of a last goodbye.  A "good night" meant I'd be back.  But he still had enough wherewithal to know what a "goodbye" from me meant.  I went out and put on my coat.  

But I couldn't help myself; I had to go in and give him one last kiss and touch him one last time.  

He smelled my coat and asked in a barely audible whisper if I smoke.  I said "yes".  

He asked if I fart too.  I said "yes".  

Somehow, beneath that veil of morphine and forgetfulness, it's like he knew he couldn't leave me on a sad note.  I avoided looking at my family; I knew that their teary-eyed smiles would break me.

I breathed in his smell one last time before boarding the 14-hr flight that would carry me 10,500 km to my husband and daughter and life back in Doha.

I said "je t'aime Papa."  He whispered "je t'aime aussi".

And I left.  I didn't cry in front of him.  God helped me with that.   

Come Camp With Me

Well, this Canadian lover of all things weather got treated to a few majestic meteorological events these last few weeks!

First, a water spout on the northern coast of Qatar, in Ras Laffan.

Water spout in Ras Laffan

Then some thunderstorms that literally shook the city and paralyzed traffic. I didn't get pictures of the storm, but these were the remnants yesterday morning on the drive to school.

Rare sight in Doha

This would of course be the rainy week Smilin' Vic would decide we're going to start camping!

Not your everyday drive to school ...

He's bought a second-hand tent of Saudi origin, apparently manufactured by the most renowned of Saudi Arabian tent manufacturers.

The "TENT"

He is smitten by this tent, insisting that we MUST take it out for a night of desert camping SOON.  He's told me that this amazing canvas abode is of military quality, no small praise from a former military man.

I'm a little wary of the whole desert camping thing.  The last time we attempted it was about five years ago.  We left Kiddo behind with friends.  Thank goodness, because it was a challenging adventure to say the least.

We'd gone along on a sand duning adventure with some friends, making it to the inland sea to catch a glimpse of Saudi before retiring for the afternoon/evening at an idyllic-looking camp site set up with a half-dozen Arabian tents, a metallic shed cum toilet/shower room, and a volleyball net erected above a sandy court.

A meal was spread out in the main air-conditioned tent, and we feasted on bbq'd meats and Mediterranean salads right there on the beach under the light of the moon and stars.

It was wonderful.  

Until the sun went down and I had to pee.  

As I got up from my lounge chair on the beach, I took in the beauty of the moon reflecting a million tiny lights across the stretch of sand.  The sight took my breath away, particularly when I realized that the beautiful little diamond-like reflections surrounding us were in fact small jelly fish.

As I cautiously lowered my foot from the lounger, a bevy of teeny tiny little mice scattered ... we'd never noticed them congregating under the warmth of our chairs to catch the little bits of Doritos that didn't quite make it past our lips.

I hopscotched my way to the toilet eventually, trying to avoid the food tent which was now teeming with mice desperate to claim every last morsel of the meal that had been prepared for us but never cleared away.  

I don't think I slept that night; every time I came close to drifting off, the back of my eyes would be filled with an image of me rolling off the chair and plopping onto a hoard of toxic jelly fish before being carted off by the army of mice intent on chewing every last speck of Dorito from my tangled hair.

The sun rose at about 5:00 the next morning.  As I lay there parched and hot, grumpy and sweaty, I raved drunkenly about the amazing bed and shower that awaited me back home.

All the tour guides had been through to take their shower by the time I made it to the aluminum port-a-bathroom.  The tin shed was by now akin to a sweat box, and I couldn't fathom taking a hot shower in that humid, putrid little space.

Smilin' Vic, ever the soldier, went in with his bar of soap and towel, sloshing into that little steam vat fully prepared to shower like a real man.  He turned on the tinkling shower head, and proceeded to sling his towel over the wire strung from one end of the tiny shed to the other.  It might have served him well to realize beforehand that it was the very same wire attached to the barely glowing light bulb hidden in the corner over the toilet.  But he realized it soon enough, and duly electrocuted, made a quick exit and declared it was time to head home.

That curbed our appetite for desert camping for a few years; I thought for ever.  But Smilin' Vic has different plans now, and is intent on organizing a truly serious camping adventure.

I'm already picturing the military approach that will be taken to this endeavor.  All I have to do is flash back to last weekend's beach trip.  Coolers packed, shelter in the back of the SUV, water jug ready, singing songs and halfway to the beach, Smilin' Vic asks if everyone is ok.  "Yes" reply Kiddo and I.  "Did everyone pee?"  he asks.  "Yes", we chime in.  "Poo?", he probes.  Kiddo and I are silent.  He says, I kid you not: "Well, I'm stopping at the next gas station, and whoever hasn't poo'd is going to go then."

Kiddo starts laughing in the back seat.  "We can't just POOOOO; I know you're joking Papa."

Smilin' Vic is unfortunately not joking.  "This is serious, if someone gets to the beach and has to go, there's nowhere to go.  And if you don't poo in this heat, you can get sick."

I roll my eyes.  "Seriously?  You ARE joking, right?"

Smilin' Vic is adamant.  "We used to have to do poo patrol out in the field. Guys would get sick.  They wouldn't go for weeks.  You wouldn't believe how ugly things can get when you've got a whole bunch of backed-up soldiers."

I am silent.  I adopt my dejected "no argument is going to best him" stance.  "Smilin' Vic, I know you find this hard to believe, but pooing on command is very uncivilian.  The general public just isn't brought up that way.  But, please, if it makes you feel better, stop at the next gas station and we'll do our best.  And we can pick up a chocolate bar while we're at it."

We never did stop at the gas station, ended up having a wonderful day at the beach, and I'm sure the camping will be just as fun.  Once poo patrol has been ascertained, throat swabs completed, and hydration check carried out.  

Oh, and provided the mice, jelly fish and water spouts remain at bay.

Great day at the beach.

Totally Doha ... Totally Me ...

I have these moments ... these weird moments where I'm totally me, totally where I'm supposed to be.

They always freak me out.

Like today.

Where I finally let rip on a consultant who outright lied to my face (honor rather than valor is rampant around these here parts ...).

I let RIP .....

It's not like I was graceful about it. Not like I handled it in a truly professional manner. Not like I was proud of myself when I finally walked away. But I simply COULD NOT TAKE IT ....

ANY MORE.

It happens.

A LOT.

HERE.

In Doha

Another totally 'me' moment ... with my friends, tonight, having dinner and drinks at the Four Seasons Hotel ... Completely surreal, yet totally where I'm supposed to be.

Seated smack-dab in between the South African cursing queen and the British pinkie-raising, biscuit-eating, tea-drinking Queen's subject.

Talking about breastfeeding days that are far behind me and an old age home that is years away (In'Shallah).

Drinking wine.

Smoking cigarettes.

Commisserating.

Laughing.

Loving.

It happens.

A LOT.

HERE.

In Doha.

The wine and cigarettes were a reward. For sitting in traffic for over two hours today. Total bumper-to-bumper, side-to-side, romper room fun ;-)

Driving in Doha traffic is hit and miss. I try to take it all in stride. But sometimes it gets the best of me. Sometimes I lose it.

BIG TIME.

I have these moments where I actually curse out fellow drivers. We're stuck in a quagmire of vehicles that is at a complete standstill and the driver behind me will start honking his horn.

And I will angle my rear-view mirror directly at his face, issue a few expletives (if Kiddo's not in the car), and give him my evil eye.

This all has zero effect on anyone else. But for me it is a huge release of steam. I get to be totally me in my Hyundai sanctuary.

I remember losing it once with Kiddo in the car. I didn't curse, but I raised my fist and shouted out "are you INSANE?????" to the driver of the half-ton truck with the camel in the box who cut me off as he headed down the wrong lane in the wrong direction (!). Kiddo calmly uttered from the back seat: "I really don't think he hears you, Maman". She was right, of course, but far too young to understand the gratification that comes with just "losing it" on someone, whether they hear you or not.

I have these moments, these moments that are totally mine, totally me. Where I let rip. Where I lose it. Where I smoke cigarettes. Where I drink wine. Where I lose it. Where I say the wrong things and don't feel bad about it. Where I cheerily ooze vino excess as I stumble through the front door. Where I'm not trying to be pretty, or smart, or cool, or proper. These moments in Doha.

These moments where I am totally me ....