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When Rupa Parthasarathy learnt in 2020 that her mother had been diagnosed with cancer, the first thing she wanted was to be by her side.
But Ms Parthasarathy was on the other side of the world.
She migrated to Australia in 2004 from India, where her mother remained living, and the outbreak of COVID-19 prevented her from travelling.
The forced distance was tough.
“When you have an ailing parent, the first thing you want to do is be there for them in any which way you can, and especially with a diagnosis like cancer,” she tells ABC RN’s Life Matters.
“It took a toll … There was a lot of guilt.”
Yet Ms Parthasarathy did care for her mother — through video calls. She describes herself as a “long-distance, virtual carer”.
“The screen became the portal through which we connected with each other,” she says.
“It felt like there was a virtual reality world into which I could step, and I could see every step of what was happening in her world — just from a distance, a little bit removed.”
It was a challenging experience, but Ms Parthasarathy found that caring for her mother was absolutely achievable from afar.
Taking care of parents in another country
Technology has helped migrants in Australia and their family members overseas in a huge way, says Vaidy Swaminathan, psychiatrist and senior lecturer in psychiatry at Monash University.
He recalls migrating to Australia 20 years ago and having to use a phone card to call his father in India, while dealing with time lags and poor reception.
“It was a very frustrating experience,” he says.
Transnational caring today looks totally different.
For example, through regular video calls, Ms Parthasarathy could check what tablets her mother was taking and prompt her to follow her daily health routines.
But caring from afar still comes with significant challenges.
When a parent is sick or dying, seeing them regularly can allow for an incremental acceptance of the situation.
“Your mind is actually preparing to grieve and preparing for acceptance,” Ms Parthasarathy says.
“But when you’re overseas, though you’re seeing a parent virtually and you’re talking to them, your mind doesn’t grasp completely the transformation which happens behind the screen … So the shock becomes a lot heavier when you actually see the deterioration, when you go and see them and they look completely different.”
That shock can set off difficult emotions.
“You feel very guilty. You question the price you’ve paid to come and set up a life for yourself in a new country. And you also start questioning if this is going to be the plight for yourself.
“Those kinds of questions make grieving a lot more challenging and complex than [when you are] in the same country.”
Dr Swaminathan says emotions like these are common when caring for an overseas family member remotely.
“There is no escape from guilt and the grief of not being able to care for them [in person].”
‘Significant personal failing’
Dr Swaminathan says caring for parents is often considered a duty.
“If you can’t cope with your duty, it is seen as a significant personal failing, unfortunately, in many immigrant communities — not necessarily just from South Asia.
“Seeking out help for that is often quite stigmatising, so I would not expect a lot of immigrants from South Asia or other parts of Asia to actually reach out for support from the grief counsellor and see a psychologist very easily.”
Ms Parthasarathy agrees.
She believes there’s a tendency among first-generation migrants not to talk about grief.
“They don’t take grief seriously,” she says.
“It is considered a life event and eventually everybody is told that you have to move on from grief. However … it can influence your mental health a lot.”
She thinks more first-generation migrants who have experienced the challenge of transnational caring should seek grief counselling or access support groups that are available.
Dr Swaminathan says there are plenty around.
“I think community is responding in its own way, trying to support their own kind here.”
He’d also like to see migrants in Australia having more access to dedicated carer leave, if they don’t already.
“Invariably, annual leave for most South Asians is going back to [look] after their parents. It’s not a holiday. So some sort of a carer leave could be considered as well as a support mechanism.”
Precious final video
As pandemic restrictions abated, Ms Parthasarathy was finally able to travel to India to see her mother, but sadly her health had dramatically declined by the time she arrived.
“Unfortunately, by the time I reached her … she was on life support and for the three weeks I was there, there was no conversation at all — though I was with her,” she says.
It’s taken her around two years to work through her grief, something she’s actively tried to confront, rather than avoid.
And she holds dear the final video call she and her mother had before her death.
“The last time I spoke to her was on the screen … I do have [that call] recorded … so that’s there for posterity,” she says.
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