Like many, I’m an expat child. When my dad and mom get sick, the gap feels crippling

My older sister and I’ve a psychological checklist of the locations we’ve stood when she’s referred to as to inform me, “Dad has cancer.” We’ve laughed about it, in the way in which you do when life has proven you a lot darkness, and there’s no different possibility.

The first time, I used to be an adolescent at a theme park, queuing for a rollercoaster. Two years later, when it spectacularly recurred, I used to be on my solution to a college lecture, whereas my sister was on a ferry. My dad had woken up unable to stroll; a tumour had been found across the base of his backbone.

We’re the fortunate ones. After Dad endured years of gruelling chemo and a stem-cell transplant which, 20 years in the past, was ground-breaking, our household has been gifted many years of “bonus” time, as soon as unimaginable when his stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was first recognized.

Now 70, Dad has watched us get married and welcomed the delivery of my three kids. His three-monthly scans turned six-monthly, then yearly – so regular, I ended worrying about them in any respect. That is, till November 2025, when my sister and I added a brand new location to our checklist.

This time, I used to be standing within the litter of my storage at 5am; with the time distinction between the UK and Australia, I knew my dad would have obtained his scan outcomes by then. As my children slept, I had snuck out of the home and messaged my sister: “I’m ready.” I wasn’t prepared, after all, regardless that I suspected what was coming.

On this event, there have been two variations in our dialog: a “new” sort of most cancers – myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), which will be brought on by intense chemotherapy – and my precise geographic location.

Raised within the UK, I immigrated to Australia almost 15 years in the past. My sister lives just a few hours’ drive from our dad and mom’ dwelling on the outskirts of London; I stay 17,000 kilometres away, a 24-hour aircraft trip.

Our familial distance is more and more widespread. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 8.8 million individuals dwelling in Australia have been born abroad – 32 per cent of the inhabitants. That’s lots of people dwelling other than their households.

Every immigrant has run the “cost analysis” of their head. In the NSW South Coast city the place I’m primarily based, I stay the Aussie dream: browsing earlier than faculty with my children, writing in cafes by the seaside, incomes a wage that felt unimaginable in England.

But after a sure age, the downsides sharpen. In my 30s, expat associates began transferring again to their dwelling international locations to boost their children. In my 40s, British mates began shopping for one-way tickets again to be nearer to ageing dad and mom.

I’ve all the time identified that, if my dad obtained sick once more, transferring again to the UK wasn’t an possibility.

And then there are individuals, like me, who keep.

As my dad’s information sank in, I discovered myself Googling “How to be a long-distance carer” at 2am – and discovering I’m removed from the one one asking.

The query is: if you happen to select to remain in your “chosen” life whereas a beloved one fights to outlive, how do you assist – with out hating your self for not doing extra?

I’ve all the time identified that, if my dad obtained sick once more, transferring again to the UK wasn’t an possibility. The socially acceptable causes? My children are settled at college; my surf-obsessed husband wouldn’t cope; the price of dwelling is decrease right here. But actually, it’s as a result of I’m afraid of being too shut – and I think my dad shares that worry.

In the previous, proximity had been my coping mechanism. During our first rodeo with most cancers, I needed to do the whole lot – to fulfill Dad’s little buddy in “chemo club”, to be taught the alphabet of medicine he was taking, to disinfect each floor. Adrenaline and the novelty of contemporary trauma carried me – till months turned years.

Unlike my doting mum, who didn’t have the selection to depart, I did – and I wanted to. I used to be “sick” in my very own method, with an consuming dysfunction that had turn into my coping mechanism. So, throughout a college summer time break, I booked a flight to Sydney – a three-month journey that turned a 12 months, then a life selection.

Dad tried to ease my guilt: “It’s easier when I don’t have to worry about you, too.” Those well-meaning phrases turned a part of my id.

Fast-forward to November 2025, and we each went by means of the motions once more. “I can come back,” I messaged him. “It’s better you don’t,” he mentioned, blaming his compromised immune system. “I won’t be able to see anyone anyway.”

Not for the primary time, we made a pact: “I’ll see you on the other side.” At the tip of this 12 months, he’s scheduled for a bone marrow transplant: an ideal match, donated by a stranger within the US. If it “takes”, he’ll not be transfusion-dependent or immunocompromised, and he’ll have the ability to fly to Australia to see his daughter and grandchildren once more.

We’d made the same promise as soon as earlier than. When I left for my hole 12 months, Dad was nonetheless studying to stroll after his paralysis and on crutches on the airport. Before I went by means of the departure gates, he swore, “When you get back, I’m going to be standing on my own.” Twelve months later, he saved his phrase.

It’s proof that no resolution is ever clear-cut – particularly the place life and demise are involved. Some will name my selection to remain in Australia egocentric. I’ll admit it: there’s self-protection at play. But it additionally matches a dynamic my dad and I’ve danced with for many years.

Unlike my older sister, a scientist who works in medical trials, I don’t converse in details; I converse in huge emotions – and I do know I is usually a unfastened cannon due to it. I perceive why, within the depths of therapeutic, my dad doesn’t need his wildest little one and her three younger children turning up on his doorstep.

The fact is, I’ve mentioned goodbye to my dad a thousand occasions in huge and small methods. However, that doesn’t erase the ache of being the absent one.

Right now, my dad is within the “honeymoon stage” of therapy, on a light-weight sort of chemo. He chats to my children on FaceTime and sends pictures of his e-bike outings. That will change as he nears his transplant. We’ve been right here earlier than, and we bear in mind it too effectively. Before he will get higher, he’s assured to worsen.

Of course, there are sensible methods I can specific care – letters from my children, pictures uploaded to his digital picture body – however I do know it could go deeper. And, so, I turned to an professional.

Casey Beros, writer of Next of Kin: What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Care for Someone You Love, says the “do I stay, or do I go?” tug-of-war is widespread.

“I have complete strangers dropping into my DMs saying, ‘I’m based here but my parents are there, and I don’t know the right thing to do,’” she says. “I understand that angst. My first response is: there is no right decision.”

When her personal dad was recognized with most cancers in 2021, she “got straight on a plane” along with her household, transferring from Sydney to Perth till he died in 2023. But, as she factors out, everybody’s circumstances differ. “It also depends on your context of grief,” she says. “This was my first experience with it. If you’ve walked through that fire before, it can be a different context.”

For long-distance carers, Beros affords three tiers of recommendation: harness know-how, “support the supporter”, and realise that guilt is a wasted emotion.

“I recommend showing parents how to voice-note doctors’ appointments, especially when they’re high-stakes. Another role you can play from afar is being carer for the carer.” This will be so simple as a weekly textual content with a sibling, or a name with the opposite dad or mum. “The patient is the star athlete and the carer is the coach – they need space to vent.”

Her ultimate piece of recommendation will be the most pertinent: no matter you do, it won’t really feel like sufficient – so let your self off the hook.

“I could not have juiced one more drop from the last year I spent with my dad, and it will still never feel like enough,” says Beros. “We all want a pure grief that doesn’t contain disappointment or remorse, but grief is messy. Anybody in this situation needs to ask: what can I live with?”

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