There is a question my youngest once asked me that I have never been able to answer properly.
He was maybe eight. We were on a video call with my ammi, and when she hung up, he looked at me and said, “Why doesn’t she just live here?”
I laughed. I made some light joke about visas and flights. But inside, something cracked a little — because the truth is, I ask myself the same question more often than I admit.
The Village We Leave Behind
Growing up, I never had to ask where the “village” was. It was everywhere.
I was one of seven siblings — yes, seven — and our house was never quiet and never lonely. There were always cousins running through rooms, someone calling my name from the kitchen, my ammi’s voice carrying over everything like background music. If I was sick, there were three people offering me soup before I could even ask. If my kids cried at night, you can believe there were hands reaching out from every direction.
That was normal life. That was just… Tuesday.
Nobody tells you that when you move to America, you don’t just pack clothes and documents. You pack up an entire way of life and leave most of it behind.
The 3 AM Moments Nobody Warns You About
They tell you immigration is hard because of the paperwork, the weather, the culture shock. They don’t tell you about the 3 AM moments.
The first time my baby spiked a fever in the middle of the night in our new home, I sat on the edge of the bed holding him, and my first instinct — the one written into my bones — was to walk across the hall and wake up my ammi. She would know what to do. She always knew what to do.
But there was no hall. There was no ammi. There was just me, in a quiet house in America, Googling “baby fever when to worry” with shaking hands at three in the morning.
My husband, bless him, was my rock that night — he still is my rock, my best friend, the one who holds my hand through everything. But there are some kinds of tiredness that only your mother can fix, and when your mother is 7,000 miles away, you learn to fix them yourself.
That’s the part nobody puts in the immigration brochure.
What My Kids Will Never Know
Here’s the grief I don’t talk about enough: my kids will never know what I knew.
They will never know what it feels like to be one small person in a big, warm, loud family — cousins everywhere, a grandmother’s lap to crawl into when they were sad. They never had that.
And sometimes — usually late at night, usually when I’m tired — a quiet guilt whispers: I took that from them.
I know in my heart that we moved for their future. Better schools, more opportunities, a bigger world. And I would make the same choice again. But grief and gratitude can live in the same heart. Loving your life here doesn’t mean you stop missing the one you left.
If you’re an immigrant mom reading this and nodding — you’re not ungrateful. You’re just a mother whose heart lives in two countries at once.
How We Keep Home Close Across 7,000 Miles
I decided a long time ago that distance gets a vote, but it doesn’t get a veto. My kids may not grow up in the village, but they are absolutely going to grow up with it. Here’s what we do:
The Video-Call Breakfast
Every Sunday, we have breakfast with ammi — over video call. She sits in her kitchen, I sit in mine, and we eat “together.” My kids show her their week. She tells them stories.
Recipes as Love Letters
Food is how my family says “I love you.” So I cook my ammi’s recipes, and I tell my kids her stories while I cook them. When I make her daal, they hear about the time she fed half the neighborhood during a power outage. When we make chai the way she makes it — slow, patient, with cardamom crushed by hand — my kitchen smells like her kitchen for a little while. A recipe with a story becomes a lesson. A meal becomes a memory.
Eid, Kept Alive
We keep one Eid tradition from her house exactly as she does it — the same table layout, the same sweets, the same prayer-time gathering. My daughter once asked me, “Ammi, when did this become our tradition?” I told her, “It was always our tradition. We just carry it with us.”
The Honest Talk
And most importantly — I tell my kids the truth. I tell them that their nani’s house was the happiest place I knew, that I miss it, and that building this life here doesn’t erase that love. Kids can hold two truths. I want them to grow up knowing where they come from and where they’re going.
Building a New Village
Here’s the plot twist I didn’t expect: the village didn’t disappear. It just changed shape.
In America, I built my own village — slowly, awkwardly, one coffee date at a time. Friends who show up when you’re sick. Neighbors who bring food when a baby is born. Other Pakistani and desi moms who get it without explanation, because they’re living the same beautiful, exhausting, two-worlds life.
Nobody replaces your ammi. That’s not the point. The point is that we were never meant to do this alone, and admitting you need people is not weakness — it’s wisdom.
I learned to drive later in life than most people here, and I tell you this because it taught me something: you’re never too old, too late, or too far from home to learn a new road. The village I have now — my friends, my community, my family here — is proof that roots can grow in new soil. They just need time, water, and a little faith.
To Every Mom Reading This
If you’re raising your kids far from home tonight, I want you to know something: your children won’t remember that the village was small. They’ll remember that you were the village.
You are the one who carries the recipes, the stories, the traditions, and the love across oceans. You are the bridge between where you come from and where your kids are going. That’s not a small thing. That’s everything.
So call your ammi today. Cook her recipe. Tell your kids one story from home at dinner. And give yourself a little grace — you’re doing the hardest and most beautiful job in the world, in two languages, across two cultures, with a heart that’s always a little bit homesick.
You’re doing amazing. 💛
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