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REFLECTIONS
Goodbye green card
ANNA VARKI
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For good or bad, we are all formed by the worlds we grow up in. And that often means taking some tough decisions…
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Aunty, when are you going back?”
“I am not going back. I’m back in India for good. After two falls and a surgery and having to move around with a walking stick, travel is a hassle I can live without.”
“But isn’t it better to stay with your children instead of staying here all alone?”
There is an element of truth in that question but I prefer to be back in good old Chennai, hear the chirping of birds of all manners, watch sights of all kinds, see human beings, and get to meet friends of my vintage!
The dilemma
Like many parents whose children have settled overseas, as great as the longing to be with your children in your old age is the dilemma of working it out!
Three of my four children have been in the U.S. for the last 30 years, a country to which my husband and I had been making trips when the grand children were born and as they were growing up, helping out off and on! After my husband’s demise in 1998, my sons got the idea of applying for a green card for me. This meant that I would’t have to visit the Consulate to renew my visa, I would have a social security number and be entitled to health insurance. But the stipulation was that I should be in the U.S. once every year — that meant reaching there before the date of expiry. Even a few hours or a day meant cancellation and being sent back to India on the next plane! Now the rules have changed; you need to be in the U.S. for at least six months every year and in the event of wanting a citizenship, it should be continuous stay for at least five years before you can apply for it.
If you overstay and then try to use the card it is a Herculean task to get it again The green card is automatically cancelled if you stay away for more than a year. A lot of documents are required when applying for the green card apart from being sponsored by your son or daughter who have been citizens for more than 10 years. Then the long wait for almost a year to be called for an interview by the Consulate.
Ever since I got the green card, I have been making trips every year, coming back to Chennai and going back, reaching in time so that the card remains valid . Travelling was easy till a few years ago. I went on my own, had the advantage of wheel-chair service provided by the airlines. Then I had a fall, fractured my patella, had surgery and then again another fall! Now I find travelling a terrible strain, airports are worse than railway stations even with wheel-chair assistance. And besides, my grandchildren are all grown up, the youngest being 17. You can enjoy your grandchildren till they are around 12 and in the early years when the parents are away at work, grand parents do have an important role to play, indeed a great role. Your grandchildren enjoy your cooking and the palaharams you make and like to be around you, even willing to join in an evening prayer.
Very slowly, all this ceases.
Gradually they start to prefer pizzas, doughnuts, subway-sandwiches and other kinds of junk food. They don’t have time to sit around with you, they stop listening to you. You wonder why and have to understand they are growing up in a different world. They have their own friends, picnics and plans. Then it is “Bye” when they leave for school “Hi” when they get back.! Fling the school bag grab a plateful of snacks, a can of coke and sit before the TV. Doing homework is a chore for all children, what with all the yelling and screaming from parents when they get back and find homework not done. Then rules are laid down: no TV till home work is done and so on. There is no lack of love or affection.
As for one’s own children. Well, they are so very busy too. They leave early; they get back late. Weekends too finds everyone preoccupied and busy — cooking, laundering, putting things in order, now and then visitors staying over or going for an outing or movie. Once the grandchildren leave for school and their parents for their place of work, there is a heavy silence and even the pet cat and dog retire into their own corners for a long siesta till everyone gets back home. Darwin the pet Beagle can sense the car entering the gate and is excited and ready to welcome his master and mistress.
Times have changed so much…
In the last five years, life here too has become hectic. Time has become a precious commodity in Chennai also. Over there it is a more ordered existence, disobeying any rule results in heavy fines, be it littering, or not picking up doggy poop! Traffic is organised, cameras are placed at traffic junctions; any violation is recorded and you will be issued a ticket or asked to present yourself in court. Queues anywhere, be it department stores, hospitals or movie theatres; and there is no pushing or shoving!
Choose early
Well, coming back to the subject of my green card. I am sick of travelling and find I cannot do it on my own. Though the children said “Amma, why not stay here permanently?”, much as I have enjoyed my holidays all these years with them, I told them I wanted to go back home to India. When they want to see me they can come over and the grandchildren too can now travel on their own.
There are many parents I know who have opted to stay there and are quite happy. If you do want or decide to stay in the U.S. I think you should make up your mind and decide by the time you are 60 or earlier. You need to learn to drive and move around on your own and get into the work of a social organisation and be part of it. Sitting idle, or watching TV will make you feel ill. In fact I told my children that if I decided to stay on I might go into depression out of boredom which they would find hard to cope with and be unfair to them
Locking up the house in India and coming back to it after six or seven months I find is not worthwhile especially with domestic servants hard to find. It has taken me six months to settle down. I have moved from a single house where I have been staying for 35 years to an apartment. I am on the first floor which has a long balcony. My exercise is walking up and down the balcony watching passers-by. My entertainment is watching the cars speeding down the road, the folks from the other apartments going to work, children going to school…. all this I miss, when I am in the U.S. The complete silence, much as you get used to it, becomes hard to bear. No doubt, having your children close by does give one a sense of security, one doesn’t feel abandoned.
Nevertheless, I think I have made the correct decision.
Que sera sera…I might move on to an old age home if I cannot manage the apartment but I have no regrets about hip-hip-hurraying my Green Card out of my life.
Email: kukivarki@yahoo.com
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