By Beamie-Moses Seiwoh
Think about this
You are in the middle of laughter and clinking glasses with friends on a Friday night when suddenly your phone rings. You pull it out, and a wave of anxiety rushes in. It is your sibling calling, perhaps without realizing how late it must be where you are. Instead of answering right away, your mind spirals into panic, flooded with what-ifs. Finally, you pick up, only to hear a gentle voice checking in, nothing more.
Do you know that feeling?
Home, memory, and distance
Today marks eight years since I left Sierra Leone, working across different corners of the world. Our dad, Beamie Moses Seiwoh Snr, remains in Mano Gbonjema, Mano Sakrim Chiefdom in Pujehun District, while my siblings Edna, Iye, and Kemah shuttle between Freetown, Bo, and Pujehun to spend time with Dad. Our mom, Maa Amie Seiwoh, passed on 30 June 2014, and her grave rests in Bo. Whenever I return home, I often find myself visiting her graveside, standing quietly in remembrance of her love, strength, and sacrifices that shaped our family.
Those quiet moments at her grave remind me how quickly time moves and how fragile our moments with loved ones truly are. Yet even now, that single call from home, the one that might carry bad news, still creeps into my thoughts, and distance magnifies everything. The silence before answering feels heavier. And the simple act of hearing a loved one’s voice saying, “It’s me, Edna. I am here with Iye and Kemah. We hope you are well. We are just checking on you,” brings relief.
For us in the diaspora, we carry a quiet contradiction. While we dedicate our lives to serving humanity in countries across the world, time continues to move quietly at home. Somewhere in that passage of time, our parents continue to age in our absence.
The untold story
Over the years, I have served in various development and humanitarian contexts, including some of the world’s most complex, volatile, and transitional ones. As a result, I have traveled widely, built a meaningful career and networks, learned new languages, and raised children who see themselves as global citizens. They are exposed to cultures and perspectives that neither I nor my siblings could have imagined at their age. When we meet, our conversations are filled with stories of different places, cultures, and adventures.
Yet beneath these rich experiences runs a quieter story. It is the story of what I left behind in Sierra Leone that still requires my presence and support. Sometimes I imagine driving from Freetown to Bo to once again enjoy Maa Amie’s magical sakii tombuei (a traditional Mende, Sierra Leonean dish) laced with red oil and ndopai (bush meat) caught from Uncle Borbor’s trap in Njala Kemoh near Mano Gbonjema. But this, unfortunately, is not possible anymore.
Pa Seiwoh is aging in my absence
Maa Amie’s passing left our hearts broken forever. I wish destiny had taught us this lesson in a less brutal way. These simple memories carry a deeper meaning now, especially when I think about Pa Seiwoh.
While my career has brought countless rewards, it has also meant being absent from home during moments that matter to loved ones. This includes birthdays, weddings, medical appointments, funerals, simple afternoon conversations over palm wine, or the slow rhythm of everyday life in our Krim land.
It is not only about being in Mano Sakrim to support Pa Seiwoh. It is also about nurturing the bond between him and his grandchildren, allowing them to share stories, laughter, and the gentle presence that no video call can fully replace.
As the years pass, I sometimes panic that time may no longer be on my side. There is a deep yearning not just to visit home more often, but to truly be present, to spend meaningful time with Pa Seiwoh, and to give back the care I once received. This is the quiet dilemma many of us in the diaspora carry within us.
The quiet dilemma
The tension between career, life, and the pull of home is not something that can easily be solved. It is a profound human conflict between duty and desire, independence and belonging. There is no easy answer.
What strikes me the most is this: when I ask other international colleagues, “How are you coping with your parents aging in your absence? If you had to give up your career and certain comforts to spend more time with your aging parents, would you do it? Would you regret it?” the answers to these questions are almost always no. And yet many of us still hesitate to make that move.
Something often holds us back: career momentum, financial responsibilities, or simply the inertia of lives that have been moving too fast for too long. It is not a lack of love or commitment, but rather the complexity of modern life and the narratives we tell ourselves about success and responsibility.
This is where reflection and intentional choices can make a meaningful difference. While there may not be a perfect solution, there is always the possibility of making deliberate and values-based decisions. When I pause to reflect on what truly matters, my values, my purpose, and the legacy I hope to leave, new pathways begin to emerge.
For some, that may mean designing a gradual transition to live closer to their parents and family. For others, it may involve creating intentional rituals of connection across distance. Sometimes it means reconnecting with siblings to share the emotional weight and responsibility of caring for aging parents and to rediscover the closeness and shared history that distance often erodes.
Being closer, physically or emotionally, can bring comfort, understanding, and reconnection during a season of life that is both tender and fleeting. At some point in life, I have come to realize that success is not measured only by the distance I travel in my career, but also by the presence I offer the people who raised me, both my parents and chosen parents.
The greatest gift we can give back
Our parents once gave me their time without hesitation. They were present through the seasons of childhood and moments of uncertainty, learning, mistakes, and growth. They invested their patience, energy, and sacrifices in ways that often went unnoticed at the time but shaped the person I have become today.
Now the roles of time are slowly reversing.
The question that remains for me is whether I will find the courage to give some of mine back while I still can. Not only through occasional visits or phone calls, but through real presence, shared time, and the quiet comfort of simply being there.
Because one day, the phone will ring and the voice on the other end will no longer be there to answer. For many of us in the diaspora, this is the quiet truth we carry. We spend our lives working to improve the world, yet our parents, who first made our world possible, are aging in our absence.
Perhaps the greatest way to honor that gift is not only through success, achievements, or the distance we travel in our careers, but through the time we choose to give back to our parents.
Because in the end, success will not only be measured by the places we served or the titles we held, but by whether we found the wisdom and courage to be present for our parents who were once present for us.
And time, once gone, never waits for us to catch up.
