Dear Family,
I’ve written about FOMS before…but writing about it doesn’t change it. I want to be everywhere and not miss anything. The difficulty is: we over-procreated and there are so many of you; geographically widespread and active in all sorts of pursuits. When spring break rolls around each year I feel myself metaphorically stretched all over the world. And it reminds me that,
Grandson, I wanted to be a fly on the wall at your debate in Northern California.
Daughter-in-law, I envied my husband watching you dance with the local stars.
Son, did you imagine me smiling proudly when you received your award in Washington D.C.?
Daughter, I would loved to have been sitting with my laptop at your writing event in the Pacific Northwest.
Granddaughter, when you danced with your troupe in Ecuador, I tried to imagine sitting in the audience.
Grandson, I hear the crack of the ball against the bat when you hit one out of the park in Arizona.
I want to see all of the soccer games, singing performances, speeches, and bike races. I want to sit with you in the hour before and share your nervousness and excitement and then rehash every action and word for hours after.
Okay. I’m counting my blessings.
Because so far we haven’t missed many of the really big events. We’ve been able to travel for births, and a host of celebrations, awards, and graduations from kindergarten through advanced degrees. I have great memories of wedding and baby showers and numerous “spotting” trips when I’ve lived bits of your lives. And I’ve watched golf tournaments, heard sermons, met friends, and helped fix dinners and clean apartments.
And I’m grateful for the wizardry of modern electronics. We see immediate videos and photos on Facebook. Skype takes us where you are. Maybe the next thing will be a GPS mapping system so that I can track you from Champaign-Urbana to Boston to Napa to Santa Fe, NM.
I’m grateful. But still…
xxoo
A Letter to my Children 
🙂
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I remember the times, when I was a wee lad, when, my family attended all family occasions to get together. This was made possible because we were not too far away geographically from each unit. Today, what I call my family, straddles the globe, from Melbourn and Sydney, Australia to Houston, LA and Chicago in the USA and many places in between. Within India, too we are dispersed across the length and breadth of the country. We, those that are able to use the internet and the ridiculously inexpensive telephony, are however able to stay in touch, but alas, the younger generations are losing out on contact with their cousins and their progeny. On the other hand, new relationships have been evolving and that is fascinating to watch increase the level of the connect but, physically I feel exactly the same, that I am missing so much. I however would not call fear but more a sense of loss.
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This is a family phrase that have used for years. FOMS accounts for much of our peripatetic behavior:)
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Oh, this is so true. My son was talking on Skype last night about possibly teaching somewhere away from here after graduate school (still 3 years away), and I am already having FOMS pangs! I had to laugh, reading this! 😀
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