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Sirli Kellian plans to leave Australia for good due to being stranded for months in Estonia, with no affordable way to return to her daughter’s country of birth until next year.

A new mom and baby are stranded thousands of miles from home after rushing to the bedside of a dying family member.

Sirli Kellian and her young daughter Rubi are two of 38,000 Australians lining up to return to the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The 31-year-old is currently in Estonia where she flew in April to visit her dying mother Piret, who has end-stage stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

Sirli had to leave her husband Isaac at their home outside Perth for fear of missing the opportunity to say a final goodbye to her dying son.

Five months later, the chances of the mother and her one-year-old child returning to Australia this year, which recently halved the number of return passengers to 3,070 per week, are slim.

The toll of family separation has been so heavy that Isaac has taken leave of absence due to his mental health and the couple are now considering relocating to their homeland of New Zealand.

“My partner says he’s fine, but when he found out we couldn’t come back and the next available flight we could change to might be in January, he had to take a week off due to mental illness, ”Sirli told the Miroiter.

“My daughter doesn’t quite understand the concept yet. We face Isaac every day. It’s very difficult.

“I’m glad I went, but every day I wonder if I made a mistake. The only good part that keeps me from having a complete nervous breakdown is being here with my parents.”

Sirli, who is originally from Estonia but now has Australian citizenship, met Isaac on a Down Under hike nine years ago.

They had planned to present their baby to the family’s European wing when she was one year old, but the pandemic struck.

Australia has taken a very proactive approach to controlling the virus, tightly controlling borders and requiring inbound travelers to quarantine for up to two weeks in hotels at their own expense.

While Sirli was aware of the hardships and cost of leaving and then re-entering the country, she realized she should take action when her mother fell ill in December 2020.

“It took three months, but then she was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer,” she said.

“From there it was in the back of our minds, what would we do if something happened? Would I go or not?

“Around April, we decided that we didn’t know how long the pandemic would last.

“The decision was the most difficult we have ever had to make. Willingly break up a young family without knowing when we will be reunited.

“But we had hope. We had hoped that the Australian government would take care of us and let us go home when the time came.”

After applying for a travel exemption that required him to explain how badly his sanity had been affected by the absence, Sirli left for Eastern Europe.

As soon as she could, she volunteered to get two shots from Pfizer, hoping it would make her return to Australia easier.

“But in the meantime, the number of inbound passengers was halved again and two weeks before we got home on August 12, 2021, our flight to Perth was canceled,” she continued.

“To be precise, our flight was not canceled but me and my 1 year old daughter were kicked out of the flight.

“All the Australian Embassy in Sweden could tell me was that it was a shame to hear about my situation but there was nothing they could do.”

Sirli is grateful that she was able to spend time with her mother, who is receiving hospice care.

However, she is keenly aware of being a financial burden on her family, who had not prepared to take care of the now unemployed restaurant manager for many months.

The only way Sirli and her daughter can get home before February of next year, when the next economy class flight is up for grabs, is to pay £ 8,000 for a business class flight.

“I didn’t have the money to come here in the first place, let alone to allow myself quarantine when I returned,” she said.

“But we made it work. We scratched every penny we had to make to make this happen so I could see my sick mother one last time.

“We already had to access our super (pension funds) last year to survive. My husband continues to work long hours in Australia, paying taxes, to make sure we have food on the table. and bills paid to the house waiting for us to come back. “

Sirli says she feels intense pressure from Australians not to return and feels they don’t understand why she left during the pandemic.

She said: “I don’t see how this is fair. My husband and I are both citizens. Do we want to continue our life in Australia if this continues?

“My husband is New Zealand. New Zealand would be very supportive of our situation. They want to bring their people home.

“Do we want to stay in Australia if that’s the way life is? We just feel like no one cares.”

I can’t believe my kids are going back to class in a week. This summer has gone by too quickly, and now I’m tagging school supplies, washing backpacks, and attending orientations. Every morning I find my inbox flooded with emails about bus schedules, updated policies, and reminders. Our summer happiness quickly turns into another year of pandemic education.

Unlike past years, when I deliberately worked to keep track of my children’s grades and check with their teachers, this year there will be very little. As many of us have been reminded over the past year and a half, very few things matter as much as the mental health and general well-being of our children. During this school year, I plan to fire or cut back on anything that doesn’t really matter academically and instead make sure my kids are doing really, really well.

We and our children have been through so much. Between distance and in-person learning, or sometimes a mixture of the two, the debates over masks and vaccines and the confusion, the loss of extracurricular activities and the constant changing of guidelines, we’ve all lost our minds. The teachers, many of whom are parents themselves, have become some of the pandemic’s superheroes, but they never asked for the role. Instead, like all of us, they were thrown into a hurricane of confusion and expectation.

If distance learning has taught parents anything, it’s that being a teacher isn’t that easy. They are overworked and underpaid. We just got a taste of what it means to be a teacher, and whoa, most of us left jobs we were never hired to do.

Knowing what we know now, with some pandemic experience under our belt, I have to share this. Parents, we have a duty to fulfill this year. It’s simple: Fire.

The most important part of our children is not their knowledge of books, nor their test scores. Our children have not fallen behind and need to be pushed to catch up. Think about it. Behind who? We have to extend a lot of thanks to our children who have endured a traumatic and continuing situation. In addition, our children’s teachers need the same level of empathy, recognition and support.

I really hope the pandemic has taught us that what matters most is that our children are doing well mentally, emotionally and physically. They should know that it is better to focus on rest over equations and movement over bulletins. Healthy peer engagement is so much more important than writing a perfect research paper. We need to set an example for them, encourage them to do their best, while giving them a lot of support and encouragement. Doing your best and going above and beyond, to your detriment, is not the same thing.

Before you piss me off, DM me that what I’m saying is fine for the little ones, but you have a high school student, I already know that. Yes, preparing older children for life after high school is important. I am a former university professor. I’ve had a lot of students who couldn’t function well without their parents (and teachers) responding to their every whim. I also had students who were very successful because they were prepared. Life after high school absolutely matters, but if the only thing these almost young adults are prepared for is education, parents fail. I have seen students collapse due to unmet mental health needs.

Children of all ages need to know that they care about everything. The overall health of our children doesn’t just depend on their measurable intelligence. I have had brilliant students who went into mental breakdowns after being pushed by themselves and their parents to be successful at all costs. Although I did not teach during a pandemic, I have come to understand that without general well-being, children do not succeed, no matter how admirable their surrogacy is.

By relaxing and drastically reducing our efforts, we teach our children to do the same. It is neither healthy nor useful to charge through our emotions and experiences, to avoid the realities of schooling in a pandemic, and to move forward as if nothing had happened. Much has happened and is still happening. Every day we receive a wealth of new information about masks, vaccinations and what each school district is doing about it.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had days when the pandemic hit me. I’m frustrated, I’m confused, I’m angry, and I’m heartbroken. If I feel these emotions, why shouldn’t my children, who wear a mask six hours a day while being supposed to learn, not be allowed to feel them too? None of us could have ever imagined, or ever wished for, this pandemic. At a minimum, we need to make room for the ups and downs that come with trying to learn during this time.

Yes, the pandemic has challenged us to be more flexible than ever. This is not a bad thing. But pushing ourselves to the brink of total collapse, always demanding that our children do and be more, and the same demands on teachers, is simply not sustainable. What if we all just signed a unified authorization form that says it’s okay to do the bare minimum, leave room for creativity and rest, and give up the rest? What if we granted grace every moment instead of criticizing and demanding?

I hope that despite all the obstacles, this school year will be both memorable and joyful for my children, and yours too. I hope our children learn to fully honor themselves, to listen to their bodies, and to recognize that their grades don’t matter as much as their well-being. I think it can happen, if the parents show the way.

A man from Jharkhand, missing since the coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown last year and presumed dead by his family, has been reunited with them through the efforts of a Telangana-based nonprofit, announced today hui of those responsible.

Marcus, a resident of Simdega district in Jharkhand, left for work in Goa in February 2020, they said.

When the lockdown was announced in March 2020, he decided to return home like other migrant workers. But he reached Khammam district of Teleganan instead of Jharkhand.

Unable to find refuge in a new location amid containment and reportedly suffered abuse from people, the 45-year-old suffered a nervous breakdown and was turned over by the district administration to an organization not government (NGO) led by Dr Annam Srinivasan.

About 10 days ago, Marcus managed to remember his name and address, after which the NGO contacted local authorities in Jharkhand, said additional district judge Madhuresh Kumar Verma.

Marcus finally reunited with his brother in civil court in the presence of the Additional District Judge and Chief Magistrate Anandmani Tripathi on Thursday.

The family, who had presumed him dead after receiving no information about him for 16 months, were ecstatic after his return.

The relieved family said the NGO Dr Annam Srinivasan was a boon to them as her efforts helped Marcus recover and remember everything.

“On August 5, Marcus was handed over to his family members by the NGO in court in Simdega. The NGO also handed over 25,000 rupees to the man, ”officials said.