Children all grown up , 10 grandchildren , 3 great grandchildren , said "I'm leaving on......" "I'll keep in touch "

After nearly three years in England my Mom is still trying to grasp why I'm not visiting her regularly. Special circumstances though. Two days before I left England to go home for my fiancee visa Mom had a major stroke. No one even told me; I found out when I got there and saw her.

Okay, bit heavy maybe for this particular thread, but if anyone else is in a similar situation, think about this.

Mom married Dad in 1946. She moved from Minnesota to Seattle to be with him. At that time this was a great distance to be apart from her own mother. She had guilt feelings over it all the years I was aware enough to understand.

When I was faced with the decision, not just to move far away, but to move far away after finding out about the stroke, I reflected on what Mom went through to be with Dad. She told me many times in my life that her mother didn't have children with the intention of holding them back from happiness, and she had no intention of ever holding us back from happiness either.

She can't tell me this now, but I really do believe she would if not for the stroke.

If anyone else has family far away, and knows there is nothing you could do for them even if you were closer, remember they want you to live your own life and be happy.

Hmm. Sorry. Struck a chord with me on this one.

I agree that the life of youth should not be sacrificed for those who have already had their lives. Considering travel time, you are probably closer to your mother than she was to her parents when she left. Flying wasn't so common then, so how long would a train or bus have taken? And how long would it take you to get home if you needed to.

If there were some heavy burden the rest of the family thought you should share, that might be something to consider. But since they didn't tell you about the stroke, they obviously felt that you should go on with your life, and probably agree that is what your mother would like.

I'm american... just got engaged to an englishman with plans to move to the UK. I actually haven't told my dad yet... but only because when I told my mother, she TOTALLY freaked out. My older sister called me in a panic and said that our mom was crying so hard that she literally thought I had been killed in england and was never coming home.

Of course, that's what my mom thinks - that I am never, ever coming home, and that I will never visit her and that I will just disappear. This is despite my assurances that my future husband is a professor. He makes decent money and gets at least four months off a year. We'll be fine. My mom, on the other hand, grew up and moved into a house ONE BLOCK away from her childhood home with her new husband, and then when gramma died, she moved right back into her childhood home. She's never left the country and rarely travels even to the next town. To her, I really am going to live on mars or something.

It was really hard. But she's getting used to the idea, and I think that once she comes here just one time and realizes that airplanes are like little time machines, she'll be ok. Still, hard. I can hardly wait to tell my dad.

When I first told my parents there was anger - first question from my parents was "What happens when one of us dies?". There were tears and anger (mine and theirs) for about 2 weeks. That was about 5 years ago. Although in all that time we kept telling them we were still going (especially after the visa had been approved) I think they kept thinking that the time would never come.

Of course it did - July 2007! In retrospect staying with them for a month before we left may not have been a good thing. On one hand it was great to spend time with them and it allowed me to set up the computer for them, but on the down side they got used to us being around and made it harder for them when we left. My parents cried for about 2 weeks. They had initially said that the trip to Oz was just too far, but in November they came out for a month. The trip out here wasn't as bad as they thought, and they loved Oz . I made sure that my business wasn't busy so that I could spend the month with them. It was hard to say goodbye, and although I have skype set up and a webcam it's not the same. And now of course I've got used to them being around the house....

I told my parents before I left the UK that I loved them and no matter where I was in the world I would still love them. That just made them cry

It's a lot to deal with for your parents, and for you if you're close to them.
Be upfront with them and tell them that it's no reflection on them.
My Mum left saying that they shouldn't have started going on holiday abroad when I was 7 My Dad was an immigrant to the UK anyway and so I said that he should understand since his Dad moved from Jamaica to the UK for a better life. Logic doesn't always help either.

They will adjust and so will you. It will take time.

Good luck with telling your Dad thaumata, and I hope it isn't as bad as you think.

Karen.

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I suppose I had lots of practice with this - I lived for a while on the West Coast of the US, while my parents lived on the East Coast. Moving to Germany was just the same distance in a different direction.

It's important, though, to make provision for staying in touch. My folks wouldn't dream of getting or using a computer, so e-mail was out - even though e-mail was one of the things that made my migration so much easier. Trans-atlantic phone calls are far less expensive than people think, though. It didn't take long for my parents to learn how to dial an international call, and to work out the time difference so they weren't calling in the middle of the night.

It helps, too, if you can find a way to bring them over the first time. Frequent flyer miles? Or offer them half toward their flights or something. Once they have their own passports and see how relatively easy it is, they'll be bragging about their daughter in the UK.

My mother is gone now (and I was over there for her last weeks, as well as making arrangements after she died). My father is in a nursing home and I make at least two trips a year over to see him. When it becomes important for you, you arrange your life to fit those sorts of things in. I'm an only child, to boot, so I've set up a US phone number (through Skype) so that I can be reached easily should anything happen.

It is literally amazing all the resources now at our command to help stay in touch with family and friends "back home."

Dad was talking about how great it'd be to move overseas in five or so years after his parents died (they've all got serious health issues and are not expected to last another 2 years) and I shortly informed him that I wasn't going to wait around for him to die before moving overseas.