Reunited after four years
Enterprise man's family arrives from the Philippines
Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Monday, July 6, 2015
ENTERPRISE
An Enterprise man has been reunited with his family from the Philippines after years of struggling with red tape.
The Proud family - Anelyn, left, Bruce and Lynn Don - are now reunited in Enterprise. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo |
And if the reunion itself was not enough, Bruce Proud's wife and their adopted son arrived on June 5 just as he was getting out of the hospital in Hay River after suffering a heart attack several weeks earlier.
Proud said he was waiting at the hospital entrance when some friends brought his wife and son from the airport.
"When I saw them, I just had an emotional breakdown," he recalled. "I just started to bawl. It was such a relief."
It had been four years since he saw his wife, Anelyn Proud, and their son, 10-year-old Lynn Don Proud.
They now have immigrant status in Canada.
"I'm very happy," said Anelyn Proud. "Finally (I'm) here in Canada."
Bruce Proud has been working as the head of public works with the Hamlet of Enterprise for about four years.
Prior to that, the 61-year-old was retired for a decade in the Philippines.
His wife started to collect the documents necessary to come to Canada just after he left in 2011, and first submitted the paperwork to the Canadian embassy in Manila in October of that year.
It was only in March of this year that she heard from the embassy that she and her son would be able to come to Canada.
In between, there were numerous requirements for documentation, medical examinations, cutbacks and a strike at the embassy leading to a backlog of applications, and a typhoon that resulted in victims of the storm receiving immigration priority.
"It just went on and on and on and on and on," said Bruce Proud.
"But she could have been here two years ago except for the fact that Lynn Don is not our biological son."
That meant the couple also had to undertake an additional official adoption procedure, which has now been completed.
Anelyn Proud said she never became discouraged by the process.
"But I was becoming impatient, and my hope was we are existing family in the Philippines, we could be also in Canada," she said.
She also understands such a long process is just normal.
However, Bruce Proud believes many things in the process could have been smoother and easier.
"I'm embarrassed that the Canadian system took that long and was so frustrating," he said. "I would have expected the Canadian system to be more efficient and faster."
The reunited family is now together in the home Proud had established in Enterprise.
It is not the first time that Anelyn Proud has been in the community.
In 2002, she and her husband visited Enterprise to see friends. In fact, they were invited to stay overnight in the same house in which they are now living.
At that time, Bruce Proud was living in the Philippines and coming back to Canada to work during the summer.
The 56-year-old Anelyn Proud said she doesn't feel homesick.
"I like this place," she said of Enterprise, adding, she has started gardening.
Bruce Proud welcomes his wife and son to Canada particularly considering the heart attack he suffered on May 14.
The heart attack resulted in him being medevaced to Edmonton, and he is full of praise for the medical care and overall support he received from the NWT.
"First class all the way," he said.
Once he knew when his family was arriving in Hay River, he asked if he could get out of hospital on that day.
Anelyn Proud said she couldn't believe that the strong man who left the Philippines four years earlier looked so weak when he was leaving hospital.
"But I'm just happy that, when we moved here in the house, maybe it helps that we are here so he can recover," she said.
Bruce Proud is also thankful his family is in Enterprise to help with his recovery.
"I absolutely needed somebody to help me, and it just happened that God or providence or whatever worked it out that the exact day that I get out here they show up," he said.
The medical leave from his work with the Hamlet of Enterprise ends on Aug. 15, and he is planning on returning to his job.
Whether the family's long-term future means living in Enterprise or the Philippines, Proud said that will be determined one step at a time.
For now, his family is together, he said.
"That's the only thing that matters."
