Far Away From Loved Ones

My partner, Wonono, and I visited my daughters in Bend a couple of weeks ago.  Bend is eight hours from our home, and though beautiful, a pretty long haul here and back.  My grandchildren were obviously excited to see us, huge grins, immediate suggestions of things to do, etc. which is always a real treat.  I swam with both kids, as did he, and created a game of pulling Zeke, the three-and-a-half year old by his hands all around the pool.  He is taking swimming lessons, but still wears little arm ‘floaties’, and laughed aloud once he realized he was zooming around the pool without having to do anything.  Gus, the older boy, ‘raced’ Wonono from end to end several times and loved ‘winning’ of course.  We hiked on wooded trails, the boys riding their bikes and zooming along faster than I could ever have gone, delighted that they were so far ahead of us. We ate dinner together nightly.  One evening my younger daughter and her husband stayed up well into the evening, though both were exhausted. When I suggested she retire, she said, “But Mom. You’re here now!”  Picturing her saying these words brings tears to my eyes.  Hopefully she’s caught up on her sleep!    I have made many friends here; when someone gets sick, we all jump in, take shifts, take care, make meals.  But our kids won’t be able to do that for us. His daughters live in Oakland, which we can’t afford. I could move since I work at home, but do I want to?  Could he find work there, or should he stay here? We haven’t come up with a solution to this conundrum yet.  I’d love to hear some of your solutions, since I don’t think the issue is singular to us.  For now I’ll try and be grateful they only live eight hours away, and not overseas, as do the children of some of my friends.  And some days I wish I lived in an era where families stayed together for generations, despite remembering very clearly how delighted I was to move to New York City to start my ‘real’ life away from New Jersey. It’s possible time and circumstance will decide for us, but for now, it is on my mind so I thought I’d share.