Feeling far

With the birth of Susie's baby, the passing of my father and my mother's diagnosis, I'm feeling VERY far away at the moment. And I think as a result, I've become a whole lot less tolerant of all the things I don't like about France. The above photo was taken outside of Walmart in Oakville...where I was greeted with a smile, and a shopping cart brought right to me, that fits both of the kids and as many groceries as I would dream of purchasing, where there are SEAT BELTS in the kids section of the grocery cart so no worries about Ryan climbing out, where my purchases were bagged for me, free of charge of course...the aisles of the store were wide and open, and there are even parking spaces reserved for PARENTS with TOTS, in addition to the PREGNANT ladies spaces. I MISS that here. I went into old town on Thursday as I had made an appointment for a bikini wax (been putting off taking the kids swimming until I could get that taken care of!!!), and made the mistake of driving there instead of my usual walking or bussing it there. Of course, I could not find a spot, so after driving around for about 15 minutes, I caught sight of a lady exiting the old town and immediately asked her where she was parked. She pointed to her car, and as she was walking towards it, I was reversing my car to her spot. When suddenly, a car coming towards me puts its signal on to claim the same spot of the lady leaving. I looked in my rear view mirror and gave the french index finger pointing, indicating, no, no, no, don't even think about it, this is my spot...to which the driver responded by jumping out of the car and yelling at me. I explained to him that I had claimed this spot from this lady before she even step foot in the parking lot...well he wanted no part of my story and as a result, did not budge his car, thereby causing me to be unable to reverse far enough to pull into the spot, and even worse, the poor lady couldn't even pull out of her spot! So, the parking lot security attendant comes over...by this time I'm already 5 minutes late for my appt and there are at least 10 more cars honking madly behind us, and finally, after explaining things to the security guard and the nice lady defending me, he moved back about an inch, just enough for me to move back to let the lady get out and me to pull in. All this to have a bloody bikini wax!!! Several other similar events have taken place since I arrived back here 10 days ago, and of course Robert is away so I've been left to my own devices to cope! I cope well with this kind of stuff day to day, but it's all getting to me now, more than before. The one thing that makes it easier is the empathy I get from all my expat friends who understand EXACTLY what I feel and experience here.
But with all that is going on back home, I feel useless here. Just last night, I spent hours trying to coordinate the removal of my father's antiques from his house, as fortunately, and rather shockingly, the house has already been sold. And I hate the fact that I can't be there to help out with my mom, even though realistically, I realize I'm not that much assistance with two little ones in tow anyway. And I want to be there for every milestone my new niece achieves, just as I wanted to be there for the three of Lo's kids. And I want them to see every milestone my kids achieve, and for them to really know their aunts, uncle, cousins and grandmas. These things are, by far, the hardest part of living away from home. Saying good-bye this last time around was the hardest one yet.