Well, we're past the six-months' mark on our application, and just days away from it being seven months since the embassy in Kingston received it. Still, no word. I managed to "force" an AOR (Acknowledgement of Receipt) from the embassy last month by emailing their general email address and asking for the file number that is assigned to me, the applicant. We've been using the sponsor's file number in all our correspondence, the one assigned to G, since the embassy never bothered to issue the AOR to me. So much for standard operating procedure.
At the end of this month, I plan to submit additional proof of contact between us, since we've been apart for going on 6 months now. A lot has happened in that time, including me getting a government job, which means I need to submit that as an update to my file, so they can further investigate me. It will likely add more time to my processing, but at this stage, what's a few more months? I am used to waiting now, and somewhat jaded by the entire process and its lack of transparency.
It was shaping up to be a somewhat depressing Christmas, with hopes for us being reunited in Canada by that time dashed, and no likelihood that we would be able to afford G coming home to visit. Add to that the fact that his father passed away close to Christmas-time last year, and I was basically dreading the season, more for G than for me. I have Negril, at least, he's pretty much stuck with Elliot Lake.
Until he decided to look for his siblings on Facebook, and found a few of them. Suddenly it has become very interesting, to meet online all these people he's not seen or spoken to in more than 25 years, to see where they are in their lives now, to watch the past catch up with them in different ways, and watch them talk around and about things in hopes of resolving memories and truth. Interesting, and emotionally exhausting. I can only imagine the magnitude it is affecting them, if it does that to me, a mere bystander.
Still, I am glad. I'm happy for him because his lack of family has weighed heavily on him, I know that much. Pieces of himself are coming back to him, and he's finding a new interest and purpose in things that never much seemed to concern him before, like his heritage and how to include that in his future.
2012 is shaping up to be an interesting year, I can tell already.
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