This First Person column is written by Estefania De La Concha, who lives in Montreal. For more information about First Person stories, see the FAQ.
My father answers the video call with the same cheerful greeting he’s given me for almost a decade. My mother leans in, trying to squeeze her face into the small screen that allows us to share fragments of our daily lives across thousands of kilometres.
It’s been nearly 10 years since I moved to Canada from Venezuela, and seeing their faces on screen has become a comforting weekly routine.
I ask about their health, their routines, and I listen patiently to everything they want to share, trying to read between the lines of their carefully measured reassurances.
Still, I notice the slight tremor in my mother’s hand and the full whiteness of my father’s hair. All these years of milestones have passed, witnessed only through the grainy pixels of a screen, a few photos and just two short visits.
In 2018, two years after I left home, my parents came to visit me in Montreal. They were both in their early 60s. While I noticed subtle changes in their appearance and strength, they remained active and independent, and navigated the city on their own even though neither spoke French or English. My father even went to Canadian Tire on his own and successfully bought the synthetic grass I wanted for my balcony, using drawings to show the employee exactly how it should be cut to fit.
They stayed for six weeks. On their last day, I took them to the airport and said goodbye with a knot in my stomach, unsure when I would see them again. Two years later, in 2020, the pandemic made travel impossible, and it wasn’t until 2023, when I finally returned to Venezuela for the first time since leaving, that we were under the same roof.
I immediately noticed how much they had aged in the five years since their visit. My dad could barely walk and my mom was struggling with her own health issues.
They had always tried to protect me from worrying too much, keeping much of their struggles silent or downplaying them. Getting them to talk was like pulling teeth. But being there in person made the reality impossible to ignore. I stayed for three weeks, and while being there brought comfort, it also felt painfully insufficient.
Watching your parents grow old is hard, but watching them age through a screen is its own quiet, devastating grief. It’s a sorrow that’s difficult to explain to my friends in Quebec, whose families live just a drive away.
When my father, now 70, was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease earlier this year, I wanted to rush home, to sit beside him, to distract him from the four-hour treatments he endured every Thursday for a month. My mother, 67, has also struggled with her health this past year, and I wished I could hug her, accompany her to appointments and ease her burden. Instead, I sat in my apartment in Montreal, offering advice and comfort over a choppy internet connection.
These video calls carry both our joys and our heartaches. We celebrate birthdays and Christmases through a screen, just as we share bad news and say goodbye at funerals. We live here, and there. We do our best to keep a smile through it all, but for me, the fear of that inevitable phone call is always in the back of my mind. I know, being thousands of kilometres away, that when it comes, it will be impossible to make it in time.
To fight the sorrow, I measure care in small acts. The long phone call after a difficult treatment, the good morning and good night texts, the shared laughter at a story retold one too many times, and the hope that we will meet again soon. For now, I find relief in knowing that they are caring for each other — trading roles as caregiver and cared for.
These modest acts have taught me that being a family is not about physical proximity; it’s about attention, emotional presence and intention.
I’ve learned a new way to love — from a distance, but just as deeply. And for those lucky enough to be close to their loved ones, may this serve as a gentle reminder to never take a Sunday family dinner for granted.
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