Dear Dáithí: 'My grandchildren live overseas, and my heart is broken from missing them'

Dáithí Ó Sé. Pic: Domnick Walsh.

Dear Dáithí,

All our children live abroad with their foreign-born partners and children. They will probably spend their lives abroad and I miss them terribly. 

My friends and I are all retired, and when we meet, all they ever talk about is their grandchildren: taking them to school, collecting them, helping them with their homework, arranging sleepovers and having great fun. 

I sit there silently, envying their happiness and with my heart broken. 

I’m getting to an age when long foreign travel is becoming difficult. What can I do?

Thank you for writing in to me and can I say I do feel a sadness and a loneliness from your letter. 

You sound like a person who has worked hard all your life making sure all your children had all they wanted and needed, a bit like my own mother. 

She did everything for us and we’re so lucky she’s still in great form.

A lot of my own mother’s good form has come from her grandchildren down through the years; they all weren’t around her, but we made sure everybody stayed connected, I’ll get back to this later.

There are lots of grandparents in this situation and a lot of the time the grandchildren are only down the road and because they have football, hurling soccer, rugby, dad and mom working and everything else, they never see each other and that is very sad.

That is why life seems to be passing us by, and the only people who can change this is ourselves. 

Your family are spread all around the world, and the positive thing is you want to do something about all of this, and you’re not happy sitting on your hands and fair play to you.

What is really highlighting this feeling is that your friends have all their weekly stories about what they have been doing and that is great - only you feel left out. 

You have a choice here, either be in their shadow or in their light when they are telling these stories. 

If you stay in their shadow, you will begin to drift away as you’ll feel outside the gang, or you can show an interest in their stories. 

You should ask them what else happened. Get stuck in and be excited for them, don’t fight it.

In the meantime, you should talk to your own children about setting up some WhatsApp live video-calls on a weekly basis with your grandchildren, so that when they are telling their stories you have a few stories of your own to tell, a story about what happened in school to one of your children, or something like that. 

Now here’s a tip to get the grandchildren to talk and stay on the line, because by nature and no fault of yours, they will want to go back to the TV. 

Find out what they are really into, it might be Paw Patrol or Taylor Swift; wherever it is, do a bit of research and engage in what they like. 

Kids for some reason are only interested in themselves, can you believe that! This will keep them, and they will think that granny is cool - we always know that, by the way!

I do think it's time to have a chat as a family, because the family are scattered all over - ye could put a plan together that sometimes they visit you at different times of the year. This will give you time with all the different people, especially the children. 

Yes, it would be great to have everyone together, but would you like the visits from different people at different times? This is up to you. You are mom, so really you are the boss, and not in an arrogant way. 

You need to explain to the rest of them how you are feeling, that your heart is broken, and this is a tough place to be. 

I wonder if your family even realize this? I’d imagine not, they see you meeting your friends and think, that’s great mom is out and about. So, tell them. Remember it’s the most natural thing in the world to miss your family.

Now you are ‘getting to an age’ yes getting so you’re not there yet and this is where you need to be on the move. There needs to be a bit of planning here. 

Pick who you want to go and see and when, and because you are planning this now, they will have plenty of notice. 

Again, if you like spread these trips, and between them coming to see you, the year will be filled, and you might be happy to be alone for a night. But you should definitely travel for a long as you can.

I could advise you to join this club and things like that, but the crux of the matter here is you miss your family, so no amount of going to clubs is going to fix that. 

You do seem to have a good bunch of friends and that is so important and interact with them with your stories and do enjoy theirs.

I did mention that my own mother got, and still gets, great satisfaction from her grandchildren, and the truth is that she too has them all over and she did stay connected, she has grandchildren in America, and it was through phone calls and Zoom she has kept that connection strong. 

My youngfella is in Galway and WhatsApp live video-calls are the job.

So don’t be afraid to make plans and let people know how you feel. 

You have so much to give to all these people, so make sure you stay out of the shadows, and one day they will realise that that you were the light all along.

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