Seven months can feel like a lifetime when measured one video call at a time.
At first, we tried to make the distance feel normal.
Every evening after work, I would prop my phone against a mug on the dining table while the children gathered around to talk to their mother. She wanted to know everything. Had they finished their homework? Who forgot to wash the plates? Who had caught a cold? She tried to remain involved in their lives despite being thousands of kilometres away.
The children adjusted better than I expected.
Children have a remarkable ability to believe that difficult situations are temporary.
Adults know better.
Some nights, after the children had gone to bed, my wife and I stayed on the call for another hour.
“How’s school?” I would ask.
“It’s harder than I imagined.”
“And Canada?”
She would smile before answering.
“It’s beautiful… but it’s lonely.”
She lived in a small basement apartment rented from another Nigerian family. The bedroom barely had enough space for a bed and a small wardrobe. The kitchen was shared, and the first time snow covered the streets, she called me on video just to show me what it looked like outside.
“I’ve only ever seen this in movies,” she said, pointing the camera through the window.
I laughed.
“You wanted Canada.”
“I still do,” she replied. “I just wish you people were here.”
While she was learning to navigate buses, grocery stores and college assignments, I was learning something different.
How difficult it was to pretend everything was fine.
Every morning I drove to work, attended meetings, approved reports and discussed operational targets as though my life hadn’t changed.
Only I knew that every spare minute was spent checking immigration updates, gathering additional documents or calculating exchange rates.
Whenever my colleagues discussed long-term projects, I found myself wondering whether I would still be around to see them completed.
I had told only a handful of people about our plans.
I didn’t want unnecessary questions if things didn’t work out.
One afternoon, my immediate supervisor called me into his office.
“I’ve noticed you’ve been distracted lately.”
“I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
“Everything okay at home?”
I hesitated before answering.
“My wife relocated to Canada.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Really?”
I nodded.
“And you’re planning to join her?”
“If my application is approved.”
He leaned back in his chair for a moment.
“I didn’t see that coming.”
“Neither did I, a year ago.”
He smiled.
“Well, I hope everything works out.”
So did I.
Every email from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada made my heart race.
Some contained simple requests for additional information.
Others were merely automated updates.
None of them answered the only question I cared about.
Would they approve my work permit?
Waiting became a full-time job.
Friends who didn’t know our situation complained about ordinary problems.
Traffic.
Fuel prices.
Office politics.
I listened politely, all the while thinking about something much bigger.
My family’s future was sitting in someone else’s queue.
Then, one Tuesday afternoon, while I was reviewing a report, my phone vibrated.
I glanced at the screen.
There was a new email.
For a few seconds I simply stared at it.
My hands suddenly felt cold.
I excused myself from the meeting, walked into an empty conference room and opened the message.
I read it once.
Then again.
Then a third time just to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding it.
My application had been approved.
I sat there alone for almost ten minutes.
I wasn’t celebrating.
I wasn’t crying.
I was simply absorbing the reality that my life had just changed forever.
When I finally called my wife, she answered on the second ring.
“I got it.”
Silence.
“You got it?”
“I got it.”
For the first time since she left Nigeria, I heard her cry without trying to hide it.
The children couldn’t understand why both of us sounded so emotional.
All they knew was that they would soon be with their mother again.
The weeks that followed moved quickly.
I submitted my resignation.
That turned out to be far more emotional than I expected.
My supervisor read the letter twice before looking up.
“So you’ve made up your mind.”
“Yes.”
“You know there’s still room for you to grow here.”
“I know.”
“We’ve invested a lot in you.”
“I’m grateful for that.”
He folded the letter carefully and placed it on his desk.
On my final day, I packed years of my career into a single cardboard box.
A few framed photographs.
Some notebooks.
Awards from projects I had led.
Business cards I no longer needed.
As I handed over my office access card, I paused for a moment outside the building.
I had walked through those doors thousands of times.
I wondered if I would ever work in an office like that again.
The flight to Toronto felt longer than any journey I had ever taken.
The children were excited throughout.
They kept asking questions.
“Will there be snow?”
“Will we see squirrels?”
“How long before we get to Mummy?”
I smiled at their excitement, but my own thoughts were elsewhere.
What if I couldn’t find work?
What if we had spent our savings only to discover we had made a terrible mistake?
What if I had uprooted my family for nothing?
Those questions stayed with me until the aircraft finally landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
As we walked through immigration with our luggage, my heart beat faster with every step.
Then I saw her.
She was standing behind the barrier, waving before we even noticed her properly.
The children ran first.
Watching them throw their arms around their mother erased seven months of separation in a single moment.
When it was finally my turn to hug her, neither of us said anything.
We didn’t need to.
The journey that had existed only in conversations and documents had finally become real.
Reality arrived almost immediately.
The apartment she had rented was clean but small.
Much smaller than the house we had left in Lagos.
The children now shared rooms.
Every purchase required planning.
We quickly discovered that earning in dollars did not automatically mean living comfortably.
Within my first week, I obtained my Social Insurance Number, opened a bank account and began applying for jobs.
I approached the process with confidence.
Perhaps too much confidence.
After all, I wasn’t starting my career.
I was continuing it.
Or so I believed.
The first month passed without a single interview.
I reviewed my résumé again.
Still nothing.
A newcomer employment adviser studied it for a few minutes before looking up at me.
“Your experience is impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“But this résumé tells employers who you were in Nigeria.”
I frowned.
“Isn’t that important?”
“It is. But they’re hiring someone who will work in Canada.”
That conversation changed my approach completely.
I rewrote everything.
I removed information I had once considered essential.
I learned to describe achievements differently.
I attended interview workshops, networking events and career seminars.
Still, the responses came slowly.
Sometimes I would receive an email thanking me for my application before informing me that another candidate had been selected.
Other times there was no response at all.
I stopped counting after submitting my two hundredth application.
One evening, my wife found me sitting quietly at the dining table after another rejection.
“You’ve barely spoken since dinner.”
“I’m just tired.”
“No.”
She sat opposite me.
“You’re discouraged.”
I didn’t argue.
She was right.
“I keep thinking about the office I left.”
She reached across the table and held my hand.
“You didn’t leave because you hated it.”
“I know.”
“You left because you believed our future could be better.”
I looked around our small apartment.
Cardboard boxes still sat in one corner because we hadn’t bought enough furniture.
The children were asleep in the next room.
Outside, snow continued to fall.
For the first time since arriving in Canada, I quietly asked myself a question I had never dared to speak aloud.
What if everyone back home had been right?
