With both my wife and I coming from military families, our extended families are spread across the country.? Recently my wife?s family came in from different parts of the country to celebrate my mother-in-law?s 60th birthday.??? This past weekend we were surprised with a visit from my side of the family.? My dad (aka Grandpa) stopped in on his way from South Carolina to his home in Virginia.? Of course in standard grandparent style, grandpa came bearing gifts. After a short Christmas-in-May celebration, Grandpa took some pictures, held the babies, and made his way back on the road for another 7 hours of driving.
Living away from family is a definite hardship.?? On a day-to-day basis, there are challenges to not having family around for specific support purposes, like picking up the kids from school when they are sick.?? But many of these duties can be supplemented by good friends and neighbors and are not as important as the need to really connect to family.?? Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and birthdays take a big hit when family isn?t around to be part of family traditions.? Being physically disconnected from family can be mediated somewhat by modern technology.
In our home, we Facetime with grandparents on the Ipad, Facebook with cousins on the laptop, and call some of our aunties on a weekly basis. ??When I was a kid living overseas, it might be a year or two until we heard from family members back in the states.?? With the exception of a letter and snapshot here or there, I watched cousins grow in two year jumps.? ?While we aren?t physically close today, through technology, we have an advantage over families of the past.? We are connected.
How do you keep up with families that live out of state? ?
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