Aging Parents (Before You Move Abroad, Part 3)
Life keeps moving on both ends, whether you're there for it or not.
It had been years since I visited home.
I get off the plane, make it to the house, and mom is there, ready for THE BIG WELCOME HUG.
As I walk towards her, I catch a glance of her hands. They look older. Much older.
It was as much of a shock as it was a reminder: when you live abroad, you’re giving up time with some of the people you love most.
I’ve been away from Brazil for about 21 years now. Canada, the Netherlands, Finland. At the time of that visit, maybe 15 years. My mom is very young for her age. But the skin on her hands had a texture I didn’t recognize. Not old. But older. Different from what I had in my head.
When you see someone every day, you don’t notice the changes. They happen gradually and your brain adjusts. But when you’re away for that long, you see it all at once. Like skipping forward in a movie. Your brain is holding a version of that person from the last time you saw them, and suddenly the gap is right there in front of you.
Never complete
When I first moved to Toronto at 19, my friend’s wife told me something I never forgot. She said, “Once you make the decision to move abroad, you’re never complete. You build roots here, and if you go there, you’re missing here. If you’re here, you’re missing there.”
I nodded like I got it, but I didn’t. I was 19…
But she was right. The longer you stay, the more roots you build. I have my wife here, my two kids, my wife’s family. My oldest is starting to have his own world. His school, his friends, his sports. Going back to Brazil wouldn’t solve anything. It would just move the problem.
The flip side (The aging son)
While I’m noticing my mother getting older, she’s dealing with the same thing in reverse. The aging son.
In the beginning, I couldn’t afford to fly back every year. There were stretches of three years without a visit. So when I did show up, I wasn’t the same.
I remember being home for Christmas one year, sitting by my uncle’s pool, and my mom hands me a beer and a Cuban cigar. Now we’re smoking a cigar together.
(This is the same woman who told me growing up that if she ever saw me with a cigarette in my mouth, she’d have my head.)
It was my first and last cigar by the way. But I digress…
Before that, she came to visit me in Toronto. I was dating my now wife and we had moved in together. Mom hadn’t seen me in years, and suddenly she’s not visiting her kid in his apartment. She’s coming to our house. Mine and my girlfriend’s. I could see her trying to keep it together, but she was struggling.
(In Brazil, people live with their parents until they’re way older than in North America or in Nordic countries, so culturally this was an even bigger jump for her.)
She didn’t get to watch any of that happen gradually. It all hit her at once. The same skip forward. Just from the other side.
The point?
These are the moments that remind you what living abroad actually costs.
Not the cold winters or the language barriers. The distance from the people who raised you, and the fact that life keeps moving on both ends whether you’re there for it or not.
I’d make the same choice again. Every time. But I’ve learned you have to be intentional about how you carry it.
My wife and I never talk about where we live in permanent terms. We’re in Finland now, but we always keep that door open. Whether it’s realistic that we’d make a big move at this point, that’s not the point. What matters is that the door isn’t closed.
We drive the kids across town every Thursday at 5:30pm, which is not easy with work and everything else, so they can learn to read and write in Portuguese (maybe they need to go to school in Brazil at some point).
I’m really close to my family, so these things are a big deal to me. For someone else these things might not be as important. But if you’ve moved abroad and you recognize any of this, the one thing I’d say is: don’t let it just sit in your head. Talk about it. Make small moves that keep your options open.
It won’t make you complete.
But it helps.
✌️
"Before You Move Abroad" is a series about the hard-earned lessons from building a life away from home. The things I wish someone had told me before day one.
Check out parts 1 and 2 below:
