The Last Day

In less than 24 hours we will be on the plane on the way home to Canada. We leave behind a very sad Mom. This is the three siblings with their Mother and she has been crying for the last two days. Steve is her eldest son and I think her favourite.



I think that she senses it might be the last time she sees him and she could just be right. The signs that her congestive heart failure is not under control are very similar to what I saw in my Mother the last few months of her life. I hope I am wrong of course but I am not optimistic.

This family has lived apart most of their lives with Steve going to the United States at age 22. Mom,who was widowed very young, then followed her eldest son and also lived in the U.S. while Voula moved to Canada. Stavros never left Greece and thinks it's the best country in the world. Steve then came to Canada and Mom went back to Greece. A few years later Voula also returned to Greece and now only Steve lives far away. The guilt is always there and I know he is bothered by it. Not much can be done about it though since neither of us really want to live in Greece nor are we able to. The system of this country is just too different from what we are accustomed to and life is too difficult. Just one example, we have been trying to phone Olympic Airlines since Friday to confirm our flight home without success. We have been put on hold for up to an hour and then disconnected. We finally gave up trying and hope all works out tomorrow morning.

Personally I would find it difficult to live in a country where the rule of law is ignored at every turn and it is a national sport to see what can be gotten away with. To me that just shows a total disrespect for humanity, whereas the Greek blame the government for all ills. They really don't understand personal responsibility nor are they willing to accept any. I don't mean to generalize here, I am certain that there are fair number of law abiding citizens in this land, it's just not visible on the surface on a daily basis.

I am going to be glad to get back to a country where law and order rules and generally people abide by it. I may get some hate mail here, but that's life. I had 7 weeks to see things from all aspects and if I were not coming here to visit family I would not come as a tourist again.

One of many highlights of my trip was meeting up with two women bloggers that I had been communicating with. Both were incredibly intelligent, warm, kind and funny and I look forward to maintaining a friendship with both and seeing them again on my trip next year.

Everyone who comes to Greece to visit always says forget Athens and go to the islands. Well I visited some really beautiful islands and will start showing you the pictures when I return to Canada, until then...ciao