My Parents Came to USA to Visit us

By all means and parameters, July 18th 2008 will remain as one of the most significant dates in my entire life. Because that was the day when my parents landed in San Francisco airport from Cathay Pacific Airlines. I was working from home that Friday and rented a 7 seater Ford Explorer van to receive them in the airport. I needed this big car to handle 4 full size luggages (70 lbs each). They got USA visa at 2nd attempt after a long 7 months of backgrounds check. While they were supposed to come 6 weeks back, at last they reached here to spend the next 3 months with me, Shusmita and their grandson Ahyan whom they never saw earlier.

Me and Shusmita planned a lot before they came here. We bought new sofa, new bed to fit in our second bed room, new LCD HDTV and so on. We were worried of the little high temperature here although so far it has been good.



Shahriar and his parents, Ezaz, Nitol came to see my parents in the afternoon and we shared the fresh Bangladeshi foods together. The very next after my parents landed, we attended the Bangladeshi People's Picnic in Fremont Lake Elizabeth park. At night I took them to show the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It was too cold there and so we didn't stay more than few minutes. Sunday (the next day) we went to Monterey Bay Aquarium and we had lunch in Ambrosia Indian Cuisine nearby. We saw all the creatures there, took photos and videos. This time we were lucky to catch the session of feeding the fishes in afternoon. There was around half an hour demonstration that we enjoyed a lot and wondered why the sharks are not attacking the lady who was trying to feed them despite her skuba diving materials and masks. We covered 17 miles drive, Pebble beach and the gold course where Tiger Woods come to play. It was a 216 miles drive the whole day and no one seemed overwhelmingly tired including little Ahyan.

The weekdays are going good with my parents company. Shusmita started driving car in my absence keeping Abbu in the navigator's seat. She is doing better driving job now and dropping me to BART and picking me off.

I have always wondered whether it was a selfish decision to leave my homeland Bangladesh for a better career here in USA and what else I am achieving here staying away from home. It's true I am getting exposure, reading some good books, traveling new and fantastic places, securing my child's future partially. But the flip side is that I am not seeing my parents, brothers, relatives, friends for a long time. Now as my parents could come to USA through me I feel my decision to come to USA is justified. Now I will have no regret if I have to just leave back to Bangladesh after finishing my job here in USA.

Life is beautifully strage!