What A Year it has Been…

Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

A year ago, I had just moved back to my hometown, Mumbai, and was living with my parents after spending two decades in the United States, mostly in San Francisco.

It was a tough time. Many factors influenced my decision to move back in with my parents. They had just left our family home of 40 years for redevelopment purposes and had taken refuge in a rental, assuming that our new house would be ready in a couple of years.

Unfortunately, the developer responsible for redeveloping our apartment community backed out. To make matters worse, the landlord of the rental asked my parents to vacate the house prematurely.

Around this time, I lost my job in the United States. Given my job loss and the need to support my parents, moving in with them made sense.

During this period, my father began experiencing health issues due to the stress of moving and the loss of security at his age.

I had to expedite my relocation due to my job loss and limited resources to assist my parents. I also had to leave my beloved dog in the U.S. while I figured out my living situation; the rental we were living in was temporary, and relocating my big dog wasn’t feasible at that time.

By November 2023, I had moved back in with my parents. We were living in a rental, and the landlord was constantly calling us to vacate the house, while my father struggled with stress-related health problems. As a family, we had no sense of security other than being there for one another and taking each day as it came.

With the arrival of 2024 came new hope.

My father underwent surgery and began his recovery process. I found a way to transport my bundle of joy, my dog Sauli, from San Francisco to Mumbai.

While we still faced uncertainty regarding our living situation, things began to fall into place.

One day, my parents discovered their dream house while searching for a new place to live. However, it was beyond our purchasing capacity.

We came together to figure out how to make it work. My father had some assets, and I had some savings and other resources we could use.

It took time to liquidate assets, find the right buyers, and generate the funds needed for our dream house.

But we made it work.

As I write this, I’m sitting in our new house with my parents asleep in the next room. I pray they are sleeping peacefully after the stress of the past couple of years.

My beloved dog is curled up and sleeping soundly at my feet.

It is December 2024.

Did I picture this a year ago?

Not really. But I did pray for it, and my prayers were answered.