We've done all the practical planning but nobody talks about this bit: leaving the grandkids. I'm thrilled about the move and grieving it at the same time. Anyone else sat with this? How did you make peace with it?
This resonates deeply, currently sitting with exactly the same grief-alongside-excitement feeling myself.
Gentle disagreement with treating this purely as something to grieve through — for me the guilt faded once I realised the alternative, staying and quietly resenting the choice, wasn’t actually better for anyone, including the grandkids. Reframing it helped more than time alone did.
Thanks for opening this up, Helga — it's one of the realest parts of moving and it gets skipped. If the low moments get heavy, a lot of the country guides list local English-speaking support and community groups in the daily-life sections; worth knowing they're there before you need them. And threads like this are exactly what the forum's for.
Helga, we're a couple of years past that first grief, so let me say what I wish someone had told me. The guilt comes in waves, and it hits hardest at birthdays and school plays you watch on a phone screen. What eased it for us wasn't time on its own. It was a change in what we could offer. When we lived nearby, we were the babysitters. Now we're the grandparents with a house by the sea, and every summer the grandchildren come for two weeks that they talk about all year. We give them less of our time and more of our attention, and I think, in the end, they got a good deal. It still aches. But it's a different ache, and not a regretful one.
Chris, "less of our time and more of our attention" is going on the fridge.
This is the part of the move I think about most at night, so thank you, Chris.
From the parent side, the two summer weeks with grandparents abroad become the best memory of the year.