August 19, 2019 to June 20, 2021.
According to timeanddate.com that is equal to…
22 months.
96 weeks.
672 days.
16,128 hours.
967,680 minutes.
To me, that is the amount of time we were kept away from home due to the COVID19 pandemic.
Expat life is wonderful in many ways. Being away from family and friends for extended periods is not one. When we moved overseas, we were prepared for the possibility of being evacuated from our host country early. Military coups, economic crises, terrorist acts… we knew these could happen. There were plans in place to deal with them.
We had not prepared for a pandemic.
We had no plans to deal with not being able to get home.
We had no plan for how to go nearly 2 years without seeing our daughters or grandchildren.
We had no plan for how to deal with the death of a parent when we could not be present with our remaining family.
We had no plan for how to deal with changing jobs and moving from life in one country to another.
But, we dealt with it all.
We found our way to Hong Kong, through quarantine, through grief, through video chats as our vehicle for communication, through online teaching & learning, through building a new relationships despite forced isolation, and finally…
we found our way back home after
22 months
96 weeks
672 days
16,128 hours
967,680 minutes
away.
The New Griswolds 