Kids going far away

northeastmom
Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:02:02 +0000

My son is currently 6 hours away and goes back and forth by bus. It is unsettling to me that an airport is not withing a few minutes of his school. He can only get home on scheduled vacations because his bus is a charter. My younger son might look at schools that are further away, but might have better access to an airport. I am wondering what the trade off between distance, and access to an airport will feel like.

To the OP, I found the first semester the most difficult (as in heart wrenching difficult). We did see our son for a few hours on 2 different occasions between August and Thanksgiving. It was something, but really not quality time. It was a dinner, seeing that he looked healthy, a quick peek into his dorm room, and dropping off a few items. It wasn’t the kind of time that I wanted with him though. That did not come until Thanksgiving. He was home for 5 days, and it was easy to send him back knowing that 3 weeks later he would be home between semesters (December break). The second semester was easier because I knew that he was happy and his break was split up better, so he was gone for 2mos., home for a week, gone anther 2 mos. and then home for the summer. For me, it did get easier. The hardest part was when he got rather ill and I was so far away. I was very close to going to his school to take him for medical attention, even though he went to 2 different docs on his own. My son got through his illness without me, and he actually survived;)! The next time he gets sick it won’t be any easier on me unless it is just a cold.