Adam Barolsky laments about the people and life you leave behind when you migrate to a new place.

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[PIANO PLAYING]

ADAM BAROLSKY (VOICEOVER): When I missed Cat's 21st, I cried and cried on the phone to her from our little flat in Perth. I felt so forlorn sitting in an empty lounge room and thinking of the wealth I left behind.

Bushty, we all call her that in the family, it's not her real name, only the result of my parents' confusion about their Litvak heritage. Bushty wrote me [INAUDIBLE], an angry, despairing, accusing email that was unanswerable. It demanded reparation, it demanded we come back to Johannesburg.

When she celebrated her 40th last year, she pleaded again on video. She said, so you're really putting down roots. Bricks and trees, flowers and bees, my schwesters and their schnauzers.

In my nightmares, my little sister's buried after some terrible accident or violence. And I'm standing again in West Park Cemetery where our parents are buried.

In reality, Cat was kicked to the ground by her celebrity boyfriend, and I was at work.

In reality, Bush was bound and gagged in her home, and I was sleeping.

Bush writes for four years to become, as Cat says, the first doctor in the family. Cat finds a boyfriend who will protect her. Bush has a secret liaison with a nice Muslim boy, but she won't tell.

Schnauzers, bowzers, wowzers, trousers, schnauzers.

In my fantasy, Cath and Bush arrive to stay with us forever. Though I hope happy refugees, they discover their luck.

But when I travel the freeway to work for the first time, my guts told me a whole other truth. I cried in the car twice, and it felt much better. But not really. I cry in the toilets on the plan after I visit. I think about my parents with their graves lined up side by side. Schnauzers, bowzers, wowzers, trousers, schnauzers. My beautiful schwesters.