The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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How often did you visit home before your parents’ death? Mine are not yet 70 and seem in good health, but it is a subject matter I find difficult.
Every year, but only once a year. We lived, my wife and I, with them for six months once, but they were fine-ish then. Cancer was sudden for my mother, and she died far too early at 73. But you never know when shit like that will hit. I went when she was first diagnosed, but by then it was stage IV multiple myeloma.
When my wife had the boys, each time, my mom came over to Japan. This was well before her illness. She, too, seemed fine, and in much better shape than my dad, but she was 11 years younger. Then when the boys were old enough to not be screamers on the plane we took them over each Christmas. My brother lived with my parents at that point and this was something I convinced myself was a benefit, but it turned out to be quite different, as my brother is a slackass. (There's no other way to put it; in fact I'm being generous.)
My dad lived a good five or six years after she died, just past his 90th birthday. The few times we went to visit after her passing were difficult, and each time when we said goodbye I could see in his eyes he was resigned it would be the last time. Then COVID hit, and this irrefutably, escalated the speed at which he deteriorated. Support that should have been there simply wasn't. And in those days just up and flying over was not an option. Even when he died I had to go through all sorts of tedious bureaucratic cartwheeling just to fly over and back (though by then those hoops were predominantly on this side. No one in the US seemed to give a shit, including his nurses prior to hospice whose commitment to a sterile environment did not seem steadfast.)
I also found the distance difficult, as you say, particularly when my sons were their only grandchildren, but their demise seemed far off then, decades away, like my own death seems: unimaginable somehow.
Edit: Apparently MM has only stages I, II, and III, but I am sure I heard someone say stage IV. Anyway, the last stage, the end stage.
Yeah, my biggest fear in life other than death is that they won’t live to see me have kids and to be able to help with them, so it’s something I think about a lot especially because I want to benefit from their advice and wisdom as much as possible. I think it would be hard to be away from them, but if we moved back to where I’m from my partner’s parents wouldn’t be able to help or see their grandchildren often either (as in your case of course).
Trade-off. For us the money and lifestyle to which we were accustomed was here, plus safety, cleanliness, and a degree of what for lack of a better term I'll call culture. My home in Alabama had giant yards, lakes, ski boats, big Golden retrievers, and all the high protein meals one could ask for, and of course family, but beyond my parents I don't miss my extended family to any real degree with only two exceptions, and was happy to be far from them. My very close friends are still in touch, some daily thanks to LINE and Whatsapp
I think for many reasons women who have children benefit from their mother nearby, in ways that are not immediately apparent for men. My wife's family is also a plane or bullet train ride away, but that's quite close in modern terms. I mean there's no time zone difference or significant financial hit to connect. Currently flying internationally feels like being robbed at gunpoint.
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