Only son and only grand daughter going to live in America

My heart goes out to you all; the pain you talk about is so clear and I know all grandparents will empathise with you. These children of ours, and their children, are so integral to our lives, that being apart as you are must hurt every day. Love to you all - keep strong.

I think that all of you who have close family living far away should be so so proud of yourselves for giving your DDs/DSs the opportunity to what they think is the right way for their live's to go you have all obviously brought your children up to be strong independant people who you should be proud of,this does not help with the wrench to your heartstrings that you must feel I send you all my heartfelt wishes.

Thank you for that comment glammanana. I'm one of the many with a DS and DGC living abroad and your comment shines a different light on our feelings

Ganmaj, it takes a while to get used to family being far away, if one ever does. I have written before about all my grandchildren being in either in USA or Australia.
I cry quite often!!!
However Facetime is excellent (if you have an iPhone) as the children can wander around their house chatting to you and that does help.
As glammanana says, one should be proud that one's offspring has grown up to be independent and able to cope on their own.
Mine are all healthy and those who work have work, and that is some kind of consolation to me.
I do feel for you.

I sympathise with those of you with family living far away. My ds1 has been in California for 11 years now. He married a Californian girl and they have two children, aged 3yrs and an 8-week-old. We are fortunate in that we have been to see the new baby already and are going again next month but every time we leave, or they leave us, the thought is always 'When will we see them next?'.

Oddly enough, for the past four years we have in fact been with my son either on or close to his birthday, which has been lovely. I doubt we shall ever be there to share the GC's birthdays, though. The 3yo is now becoming more interested in Skype and it is quite funny to see how he doesn't bat an eyelid when we sometimes turn up in his house - he is completely familiar with us.

In some ways I have been fortunate in that I almost didn't have time to miss ds1 when he first moved to America as I still had children at home (still do!) and we moved abroad ourselves for a few years so life was busy for us anyway. How we will manage as we get older is something I occasionally think about but I then park it somewhere out of the way when I can't find a solution.

On Friday my daughter will celebrate her 37th birthday in New Zealand where she lives and I hope to Skype her and wish her well. I'm glad she's where she wants to be and doing the job she loves, so I tend to reign in my own emotions and dwell as much as I can on the positives. (In all honesty I don't always succeed - some days I really miss her darn it!!)

I'm new to Gransnet but immediately empathise with Ganmaj. I am incredibly lucky to have two wonderful GC very local to me who I see very frequently. However I am filled with sadness as I will soon have another GC but know that I will never be able to have a similar relationship with them as they are in Australia. All of this is made so much worse as my DIL there does not even speak to us. We are not really sure why as when she and our DS were in London (for three years) we were quite close and she spent a lot of time with us. They have now emigrated and live very near her family. My only conclusion is that she sees us as a threat to DS settling in Aus. He still has regular contact with us but there does seem to be a lot of tension caused by her attitude to us and we cannot even talk about it with him. I know he is torn. We did visit but she (and her family) made us very unwelcome and uncomfortable. We are also extra sad because our DD has also gone to live in the same city in Aus. It is interesting that she is getting the same treatment from DIL and family. I just keep thinking about what we are going to miss with the impending birth and it is hard to share DS's joy when we can only feel sadness.

Hespian, it's similar for me with my DIL. Sadly I have to accept that's the way it. It's very sad. Although my Inlaws were super critical I was respectful and polite and encouraged a good relationship between them and grandchildren. Everyone is different is my mantra.

It's been a great learning step for me to read how many others share similar problems. Thank you all
I guess I just feel more easily overwhelmed because my brain injury makes me oversensitive to everything, sadly that's a physical problem that I can't do anything about. But many of your suggestions have made me determined to set up a regular Skype contact with GC. and NOT lose the joy of watching her grow up.
Its also good to feel part of the world with offerings from you all, as I have to spend a lot of time alone in silence. Thank you thank you for your help.

Butty , Jess and Granmaj flowers] flowers] and big hugs to you all.

Two of my grandchildren live in the next town and I have not seen them for 5 years. I miss them a lot but there is nothing I can do.