It started off with Jamal’s death. Our holiday to Greece was cancelled. As a result I have not seen my parents since the summer of 2019, when we left Dubai and moved to Denmark. A week later we were in Tampa. A city neither myself or Yasmine had ever heard of. In fact, the only reason I had even heard of Tampa was because of Crossgen comics. There was a period of mourning and sadness and uncertainty in the house. I tried to keep it hidden from the boys and let them enjoy the summer. 2 weeks in, my mother-in-law’s appendix burst - caused by the pain from loosing her son.

IRCC Fiasco

There is no better way to say this other than the IRCC shat the bed over the summer. Our waiting times went from 1 week to 23 days, to 35 to 45 to 55 to 66 and we finally got the ok at day 73! To not fall foul of any visa issues, I flew out to the US and brought the kids over without their mother. That was a tough decision predicated on a complete leap of faith. The kids would only be separated from their mother for a few weeks maximum.

We were ready for Canada. Sadly, Canada was not ready for us.

The biggest irony in all of this? Of everyone in our family, morally Yasmine has the biggest claim to entering and staying in Canada. Turns out her grandfather was Canadian. Two generations later his granddaughter has to jump through hoops to re-enter. The world we have created has so many fucked up rules.

Hurricane Ian

I am reminded of the final scene from Argo (spoiler alert if you’ve not watched it, you really should). My wife left Tampa 4 hours before they shut down the airport. She was in Tampa for over 3 months and escaped a 1 in 100 year hurricane by 4 hours.

A New Start

It is completely surreal experience for my entire family to be here in Canada with me. We have a lot of living to get done.