I Don’t Know When My Daughter will See Her Daddy, Again
My husband is fighting the COVID19 on the frontlines in California as an ICU nurse while I am fighting a strict lockdown in Spain where kids aren’t allowed to go outside.
My husband works as an ICU travel nurse in California while my daughter who is 10, and I live in Spain. He works three months-long contracts, and then spends three months with us, then repeats the cycle again.
He left in January and was supposed to arrive on April 15th which means today on his birthday. Unfortunately, because of COVID19 and the closed borders in Spain, he can’t return to us this time.
Two weeks ago, I wrote to the Spanish ambassador in Washington DC and asked him to helps us navigate this situation.
My daughter and I are EU citizens with residency in Spain. My husband isn’t. He is in the middle of getting legal residency here in Spain. So, he does not qualify to enter the country which currently allows only for Spanish citizens or residents.
Here is the response from the Embassy:
Dear Mrs….,
Due to the current crisis caused by COVID19, currently, no foreign citizen is allowed to enter the Spanish territory, except those who have established their residence in Spain.
In the event that a foreign citizen has family members residing in Spain, he needs to prove that there is an urgent and force majeure reason to join them.
This extraordinary and urgent situation must be documented.
Otherwise, the entry will not be allowed until the current situation ends.
We are sorry.
Sincerely
Consejería de Interior en Estados Unidos y Canadá.
Home Affairs Office.
My daughter is asking me every day: “ When am I going to see my daddy?” I am the person who has always had all the answers for her and suddenly, I am speechless. I want to cry and scream because I am hopeless but I end up answering her with: “ I do not know.” It is literally killing me from inside.
I started obsessing about the COVID19 news and numbers which were only climbing on Worldometers. I tried to read all the articles until my anxiety was growing silently upon me. But I know I am not alone. There are so many families who live now apart for an unknown period of time because nobody really knows.
In Spain, children can’t go outside or to the store. If the police catch you, the fines are high, they can be between 601–30 000 Euros. I can’t afford them. A few days ago my neighbor told me, you can take her to the grocery store. My daughter smiled for the first time and whispered to me: “Mommy, I can go outside!”
Finally, on the 32nd day, she went out. However, it did not go well because, they did not allow her to go with me to shop, but she could wait at the entrance in the corner with the security guard. I was gone only 15 minutes but my daughter had tears in her eyes when I returned because for her it was the whole eternity. We got lucky, we did not bump into police.
After we returned home, we washed our hands, changed clothes, wiped all the groceries with bleach tissues and put it all in its place.
A few days have passed and again, we are at square one. My daughter and I continue to stay confined. I decided to go outside only once a week to buy food. I don’t want to leave her alone at home.
I am trying to keep my sanity. So, I stopped. I stopped watching the news, reading about the COVID 19 articles because it drives me into insanity.
I have built walls around my heart for this time from the sad pandemic news. Besides spending my time with my daughter, I am using this time for my creativity and shifted my energy towards writing. Writing is so therapeutic just like Dr Mehmet Yildiz describes in his article. This is a perfect time to build writing momentum and enjoying my time with my daughter. We need each other now even more but we miss you, daddy.