The Heartbreaking Reality of Living Far From Family

For most of her adult life, one woman has measured love in airplane tickets and time zone differences. Fifteen years after moving from the United States to Wales, she still carries the same grief her mother felt on that first day.

The decision seemed simple at 22—she fell in love with a Welsh man and started a new life across the Atlantic. What she couldn't know then was that this choice would define every future goodbye.

"My goodbye, now looking back, was fleeting; hers was permanent."

Every visit ends with the same ritual: a few tears, a forced smile, and the quiet acknowledgment that they don't know when they'll meet again.

The geography between them is unforgiving. An ocean and a five-hour time difference separate their daily lives, turning simple conversations into scheduled appointments.

In the early years, weekly Skype calls were their lifeline. She would cry about the challenges of adulting while her mother listened from thousands of miles away. Today, technology has improved but the fundamental distance remains.

They now communicate through:

• Daily WhatsApp text messages
• Multiple phone calls each week
• Video chats when schedules align
• Photos and voice notes throughout the day

Yet technology can't replace presence. When the author had her three children—each born just two years apart—she felt a profound longing that no video call could satisfy.

Having babies overseas created a unique kind of pain. The author insists she didn't need help with laundry or night feedings—she's fiercely independent. What she craved was simpler and deeper.

She wanted her mother to just sit with her. To be there during those vulnerable months when postnatal depression and severe fatigue set in. The woman who carried and gave birth to her should have been there when she did the same.

"We both felt the pangs of being apart, because it only feels fitting that the woman who carried and gave birth to you should also be there when you do the same."

She made it through those wearisome years of babies and toddlers, but the scars of doing it alone remain.

The pandemic created an unprecedented gap in their relationship. Combined with a high-risk pregnancy, the author couldn't travel to the US for nearly five years.

During that entire time, her mother managed only two visits to Wales. The woman, now 63 years old with a back that "isn't brilliant," still made the arduous journey.

For the author to visit home requires:

• Four plane tickets (hers plus three children)
• Significant financial planning
• Coordinating schedules across continents

For her mother to visit Wales means:

• A very long international flight
• Car rides before and after the flight
• Managing physical discomfort from travel

These aren't casual visits. They're major logistical operations requiring weeks of planning.

Recently, after nearly five years apart, the author's mother spent three weeks in Wales over the holidays. They both soaked up every moment, knowing it might be their only in-person meeting for the year.

The adjustment wasn't seamless. After so long apart, they annoyed each other for the first couple of days, trying to adapt to different rhythms and routines. But they pushed through.

The final day arrived with brutal finality. "It felt like I walked into a wall that hit me with all the reminders of how hard it is living away from my mom," she recalls.

She cried, as she always does. Then she did what her mother taught her: counted her blessings, acknowledged the strength this life has forged, and moved forward.

Living far from her mother wasn't a choice she'd make today, knowing what she knows now. But it has given her something she didn't expect: resilience.

She learned to do everything on her own, exactly as her mother had to do raising her and her sister. The strength she needed to survive overseas motherhood came from watching her mother's example.

"Herself a strong woman, she raised a strong woman."

The daily effort, the grief that never fully disappears, the expensive plane tickets—all of it has created a bond that transcends geography. Their connection is deeper because it requires constant tending.

Technology helps. Love sustains. But it's the resilience learned through separation that makes it possible to keep choosing this life, one goodbye at a time.