I was laden down with grocery bags and fumbling in my purse for my front-door key when my phone rang.
I might have ignored it, but it was my daughter calling. My daughter and I speak every day but usually by text. I’d better answer, I thought. Could be important.
When I swiped right and the video image appeared on my phone screen, my heart lightened. I set all my bags on the ground so I could focus on the little face before me.
It was my 6-year-old granddaughter.
“Mom,” said my daughter from off-screen, “Ariadne asked if she could call. She’s been crying because she misses you so much.”
My daughter and her family live in Paris. When we’re in Paris, we see them all the time. When we’re in Panama, we all miss each other a lot.
We organize travel together as much as possible… including, last month, a family visit in Woodstock, Illinois, where Lief and I have established another home base. Our daughter, our son-in-law, and our two granddaughters came to stay for two weeks after the girls’ school years concluded.
We celebrated America’s 250th birthday with backyard bar-b-ques and fireworks. Our granddaughters participated in swimming and riding camps. Ariadne even started her first business—The Great American Ice Cream Shoppe…
The two weeks flew by… and, now, just a few weeks later, it already feels like we’ve been a long time apart.
“Hello, my Munchkin!” I said into the screen with a big smile. “I miss you, too, so much. I’m so glad you called. Now tell me all about everything you’ve been doing!”
We chatted for several minutes, and Ariadne’s spirits brightened. She wiped her eyes and finally smiled.
“Mama said I can call you anytime, Gigi,” she told me. “Is that ok? Can I call you whenever I want to talk to you about something?”
I made my first move overseas, from Baltimore, Maryland, to Waterford, Ireland, when my daughter Kat was not much older than Ariadne is today. Before the move, my mother and my daughter saw each other every week. After, months passed between visits.
I knew at the time that my mother was missing Kat horribly. Alas, life is playing out to show me just how hard it was for my mother to live an ocean away from her granddaughter.
But Ariadne offers hope.
She and I can video chat every day! Why in the world hadn’t I thought to suggest that long before now?
I don’t talk about it enough, but I can tell you from experience that, moving from one country to another, you will miss the folks from whence you’ve come.
I participated last week in a panel discussion hosted by Forbes called “The Insider’s Guide To Living, Working, And Retiring Abroad.”
“What about making the move as a single?” Janet, the Forbes moderator, wondered after we’d been chatting a while.
“Is that more challenging… or easier?”
“It’s both,” I said.
Moving to a new country with a significant other requires compromise.
“Why are you considering mountain towns?” one spouse might wonder of the other. “You know I’ve only ever wanted to live at the beach!”
Moving as a couple also comes with a greater up-front capital requirement, especially if you want to stick around in your adopted homeland full-time. Two residency visas cost more than one.
On the other hand, making a move on your own means you’re on your own.
You’ll have no one to commiserate with at the end of frustrating days… and you will have frustrating days…
And there’ll be no one to turn to for a hug when you’re really missing your granddaughter.
But what you will have—that my mother did not have 30 years ago when I moved myself and her granddaughter out of Baltimore—and as it took my own granddaughter to remind me now… is technology!
It’s not the same as cuddling with her on the sofa while we read a book together or pulling the covers up to her chin as she falls asleep…
But it seemed to help Ariadne feel better the other day when we were able to connect for our WhatsApp video call.
I know it made me feel much closer.
Until next time,
