We're grateful for the life we built in Canada, though we ache for those we left behind

This First Person article is the experience of Itrat Anwar, a newcomer from Bangladesh who now calls Steinbach, Man., his home. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see this FAQ. You can read more First Person articles here.

This Christmas, we hold each other close, thankful for the life we’ve built here in Canada. It’s a season of warmth, joy and togetherness, a time for family. 

But for us, Christmas brings a deep sense of longing. This will be the fourth year we've spent it far from our parents, separated by thousands of kilometres.

We long for them to feel the warmth of their grandchildren’s embrace, not just through a screen, but in person. There's still an empty seat at our table. 

We're surrounded by friends who feel like family and we remind ourselves often: We are lucky. 

But even gratitude can't silence some kinds of longing.

My wife, Halyna, lost her mother the same month the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, while she was pregnant. The grief, the fear, the constant air raid alarms — it was more than any heart should have to bear. 

After days filled with uncertainty and danger, she finally escaped the war with a harrowing train journey, desperately seeking safety. 

Halyna says those days were the most terrifying of her life, and she still has nightmares. She believes only those who've lived through it can truly understand the depth of that fear.

It was during this difficult time that Halyna met my parents for the first time in Bangladesh. Despite the heavy sorrow she was carrying, a bond quickly formed between them.

My mother welcomed her not just as a daughter-in-law, but as a daughter who had come home. The love and warmth they showed her helped soften the grief she had been holding onto.

For the first time since losing her own mother, Halyna began to feel a sense of family again, a feeling she had thought lost forever. 

When we moved to Canada, we carried with us a simple dream: that one day, we would bring our parents here too, and be together again as a family — but life had different plans.

Just as we were searching for ways to make that dream a reality, we were blindsided by news that would change everything: my mother was diagnosed with cancer.