A RICH AND DESOLATE PLACE

Each passing day people are teasing me because I was up for my vacation time...my contract completion is up and coming and time seems to pass by that fast now that is getting nearer…During these years I feel like losing a segment of my life in a vortex because I had always been together with my family no matter what happens... and I have never wanted to an OFW…then suddenly I became one and a reluctant one if I may say so… I left my life and family for the rich and desolate deserts of the middle east …to work overseas…and I did so not in the prime stages of my life but at 50…my life was at a cross road…and the road up ahead was kind a unsettling…because I had to decide to go and work abroad…with the fervent hope that the better future of my family is at stake and the life I came to know before was no more and was on the line…that I am now the stranger in the strange land…

I left the parenting duties to my wife…to work as an OFW ...To get here I had to borrow money then for my placement…and some money I had to leave for my family’s first 2 months to sustain them while I start my job…I was able to scrounged some money from friends and a brother of mine and as I went through the many challenges a job seeker has to live out and had to go through the uncertainties of being recruited and finally arriving in a rich and desolate country in the middle east…I wanted my wife and daughter to have a happy life …and I have always wish that she raise our child in the righteous ways of life and to grow as responsible person…and I am quite sure she is capable of this…the guilt inside me is there…I am leaving my wife to a life without me in person…a lonely life for both of us…but we need to strive and work hard for our place in the sun…As for me I know that the most hardest part is I am an empty shelf inside…the loneliness that I have is like an unbearable burden but one has to seek joy and hope in spite of the difficulty…At times I think about my wife and how painful it must be for her because its hard to go through life without your partner specially when problems in the family arise, when there’s no one to talk to…no one to tell your stories…which is why I try my best not to burden my family back home with the problems that I meet each day in my life abroad…and when I have my own problems in my work place I just try my best to ignore it and not tell my wife and family about it…

During those times of desolate loneliness…I just try my best not to think of it and just put it at the back of my mind…and sometimes I try to seek comfort in the company of my friends here to lessen the homesickness…but when the evening sets in and alone in my bed I always pray that my wife takes care of our family, and she takes care of the income that I sent home, and she takes care of her love for me, because I will be back someday to somehow fix my own life, fix the dis-functionality that my absence from my duties as a father …and try to get a semblance of normalcy…to be with my love ones again even for such a short time that my vacation will allow me to do so…try to make the best of the times no matter how short they may be…before I go back to my rich and desolate place in the middle east…