I think of her in the early evenings setting up Netflix on her iPad, making a cup of tea for one, putting off going to bed until really late so she can go straight to sleep. Checking WhatsApp for any connection to the outside world or looking through the window to see if any of the neighbors are at their windows, just to see a friendly face. Many dinners for one still lie ahead of her until we get this virus under control. Guilt and regret can consume you. While my favorite writer, Stephen King, gets ready to launch yet another new book ( If It Bleeds ), I’m stuck in a horror scenario of my own making, a kind of time warp amid a world turned almost apocalyptic. What else does lockdown, an aggressive virus and border closures make you think of? So if I’d thought there was endless time to tackle my bucket list or just to visit my family, I now know that things could change in a heartbeat. These are not the things we should put off. It’s not like the other stuff we procrastinate on: I’ll go off sugar next week. I’ll call the dentist about that root canal in a couple of weeks. I’ll book that hair treatment next time I have a day off. No, those are the things that can wait. Things like calling your mum or visiting your twin sister cannot. 2019 was the first time since I’d come to Qatar 10 years ago that I decided to skip a year visiting my sister. It was a year of changing jobs and a few other personal stresses and there never seemed to be the right time to visit (the same year I visited Phuket and Beirut). I put off seeing her until May 2020 or Ramadan 2020 or Eid 2020. Anytime in the future. Not foreseeing a coronavirus would make it impossible to leave the country freely. Once again, torn up with “what ifs” as my niece’s birthday passed in May without me, and I foresee another year of missing out on all the other big events in my sister’s life. As expats, these are emotions we are all too familiar with. We sacrifice being in their lives, missing out on seeing our nieces and nephews grow up, our parents getting older, our relationships growing more fragile each year we are gone. It’s hardly fair to blame the coronavirus though. It’s not as if the virus is personally targeting me or purposely making my life a misery. I know people who have inadvertently been separated from their spouse and children due
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