WILMINGTON, N.C. — People who were separated from family members during the pandemic know all too well that time seemed to stretch on endlessly as restrictions made travel nearly impossible.
Norway is a 16-hour flight from North Carolina
Kari Aasen has been living in a village of 8,000 people in Hokksund, Norway
Mom and daughter haven't seen each other in nearly a year
The unknowns at the beginning of the pandemic were too many for Catherine Bright, and she decided that her daughter's life would be more consistent if she did what might be unthinkable to many parents — sending her child to live overseas.
“It was a really easy no-brainer decision if she was going to be safer there, that's what we have to do,” Bright said. “It's been hard. Saying bye to her, I mean it was the hardest day of my life.”
Kari Aasen has spent the last 10 months in a small village in Norway with her father, living in a world largely unaffected by the virus. The only flaw in the plan was the ability to get her home again. Bright expected to have her daughter back in her arms by December at the latest, but the pandemic interfered once again.
“I was supposed to go over there to visit her and bring her back here, and then Norway implemented a quarantine hotel,” Bright said.
She was helpless as she watched her daughter's flight get cancelled time after time from the other side of the world. Bright said even as she knew Aasen was finally on her way home, she couldn't let her guard down until she was on the last flight into RDU — things could change all too quickly.
“I'm just shaking, I'm so excited to see her,” Bright said. “This moment right here, this is what I've been waiting for. She's going to run up to me and hug me, and I can't wait to have her in my arms again.”
Bright has lived the day of Aasen's return over and over, never thinking it would get here, but now that she's back, a period of transition has to begin.
As the world finds its new normal, the Bright family is as well. Aasen was only 8 when she left and now she's coming home as a 9-year-old, getting to be a big sister for the first time. Her mom knows there are things she's missed that she'll never get back from her time away, but she hopes her little girl is still in there somewhere.
“Is she going to want to hold my hand when we're walking down the street?” Bright wondered. “Am I going to get to do that again? It's kind of like these anxieties. How much has she grown up?”
But they have all the time in the world to get to know each other again as neither mom nor daughter has any plans to separate any time soon.
“Going forward, we're going to try to keep it more consistent for her, and hopefully there's no more pandemics, and I don't have to ship her off to Europe for a year,” Bright joked.
