Modern Technology

Day 187 – I just got a picture of my granddaughter. She is there with her moms and meeting my ex for brunch this morning. She looks so sweet and she grew so much since I last saw her. I am so far away and will see her so seldom, I will not really be a part of her life and it makes me very sad. But I really don’t see any way around it. I hope that when I’ll come to visit next time or the time after I will be able to see her significantly more, but still I will be the absentee grandmother that she won’t remember. This is part of the price we all pay for living so far apart, that we are not really in each other’s life any more. But it is something we created many years ago, when we decided to leave our country and live elsewhere. We created this gap of broken and split identity in our kids and in us. And at the end of the day I can’t see myself living my whole life there. I wanted to come back here, but my kids feel more at home there. There is no point in looking back, in asking the questions if it was the right move to leave and move there. It is all non-relevant. We have a situation that is not ideal and it seems it might stay like that for a very long time, maybe forever. A family on both sides of the globe; grandchildren I’ll barely know; children I will slowly grow apart from. A sad reality that I am not sure at the moment how to solve, if it is possible to solve at all. But regardless, I am so happy to see this wonderful baby grow and at the age of almost 2 months old she is absolutely adorable. I love her even from far away.
I am thankful to modern technology that enable me to be at least a little in my daughter’s life, to see her baby grow. Phones and emails and digital pictures – how did people do it before? It was a real isolation, real disconnection. I am so thankful I can witness it all from afar. And let’s not forget airplanes – I can come for a visit few times a year. I am thankful for all these advances I took for granted for so long.