My Wife Left Me On St Valentine’s Day and I Haven’t Seen Her Since.

The practice of gratitude.

14th February 2020 was the last time I physically saw my wife. On St Valentine’s Day I waved her off at Dammam International Airport in Saudi Arabia as she made her her way to Spain, thinking that I would be waving her back about 6 weeks later…and it’s coming up to 6 months.

We moved to Saudi Arabia in November 2019 due to work, she with a tourist visa and me with a work visa. My visa is for a year, her’s was for 3 months. As I had already organised the paperwork for her residency we thought she may as well go back home and process it quickly via the Saudi Embassy. Shame that the crystal ball wasn’t working too well at the time otherwise we would have seen her stuck in Spain with the borders shut and done something about it beforehand.

Work has separated us on various occasions during the 32 years we’ve been together. The first time oddly enough was also in Saudi Arabia, in 1994, during the 3 months it took to organise her residency. Other times we were at least able to see each other every 2 to 3 weeks for long weekends.

Even though we’ve been through this before, it has never been for this long or with this much uncertainty, and that is what is so difficult. “When…?” is the recurring question. When will we…