Moving to Florida

My daughter is moving to Florida.

I typed that first sentence with a heavy heart. We lived in Florida for 3 years before we moved here in Iowa.

I have lots of good memories in Florida. The warm weather. The orange groves around our apartment. The fruity citrus scent as we step out of our door. There’s also the sandy beaches that we visited. The Disney theme parks that we frequented when my daughter was still very young. It was in Florida that my little girl started digging in the dirt with her toy pail and spade, and also danced joyfully around the water sprinkler in our backyard during hot days. We also spent some hours wading and swimming at the pool of our residential community.

Florida will always be special for us, as our move there brought an end to the bitter winter segment of our lives. After my 6 years of medical training, we applied for a change of visa so we can stay here in the US for work. But that immigration process took longer than what we expected. With no legal status and not allowed to work we went through some hardships. At least we’re allowed to stay in the country as our visa application was pending. We stayed in homes of friends and families and moved from state to state, to New Jersey, New York, and California. We relied on the mercy and kindness of other people to provide us our daily needs, including the most basic: food and shelter.

After being “homeless” for 10 months, our visa got finally approved and I was hired to start work in Florida. We eventually moved to a place of our own even though it was just a rented place. What a great feeling to have that first night in our very own apartment, even if we slept on the floor, all of us – me, my wife and my daughter who was a toddler at that time, as we don’t have any bed yet. That is Florida for me.

But the move to Iowa is another level up on several aspects: a greater opportunity for me to grow in my career, a more secure path for my immigration status, and a better place to raise my family.

After almost 20 years living in Iowa, my daughter is going back to Florida. But it is not because of the hot weather, nor the Disney’s theme parks, nor the sandy beaches or the cool swimming pool that she’s moving back there for. It is because of the great opportunity for her to work in one of the top-rank universities there. It is her turn to look for employment and to chase her own dreams. This will be her first professional job after finishing graduate school. But I guess the other perks of the fair weather, the beaches and swimming pools will be a nice addition.

I am happy for my daughter. And yet there is this strain in my heart knowing that she will be living far away from us. She has moved out of our home a few years back, though she stayed within the state of Iowa and was just a 2-hour drive away from where we live. But now, she will be 1,500 miles away. That is a 22-hour car drive, or 4 to 5-hour plane ride to get to her. I know she is always just a phone call or a FaceTime away, but it is not the same. Florida was special for me for what it provided for us before, but now I hate it, for stealing my daughter away.

The movers just packed and loaded my daughter’s belongings in a truck, and she is on her way to Florida as I finished this post.

I know that this is the reality of life, even though I really don’t like this part. But I also know that this is what we trained our children for. We want them to spread their wings and take flight. Yet many times we wish that their flight will not be that far.

At least not that far from us.

(*photo taken with an iPhone)