Oops- forgot the word not in my above post. Entirely different meaning! Does NOT need to answer cell phone even though he may have it with him and be able to talk.
When I read your post, it seemed to me midwest and southwest are pretty close! I enjoy my kids living in a different place, especially a place I haven’t visited much. I love to travel, I just haven’t much in the past due to money, work, and family. The money is better with kids out of the house and I don’t have the family responsibilities. I see it as a new opportunity for myself. Going to Boston, somewhere I’ve not been till DS moved there, next month. I have been to see DD in other parts of New England, the Tetons, and hoping to go to South America.
One thing I do, is pay for the kids plane tickets to come “home” for visits.
My husband was in the military and we have never lived close to our parents since college. My two oldest daughters both went overseas after graduation and one is now in Turkey. It’s hard, but you adjust. When the oldest went the first time, it was 18 months before she came home.
Parenting is the only job in which IF you’ve done your job well, you are outta work at the end of the kids’ college years…or maybe you just get transferred to a different department. 
We’ve always tried to set a good example for our kids in the way we stay in touch with our parents. Sometimes we are pretty good about it, other times not so much. When I’m feeling blue about not hearing from my progeny, I call my mom. I think as a grown adult, I forget that I am someone’s kid too… Trying to remember that she won’t be here forever, and that I should treasure this time.
My D moved to San Francisco and we live on the coast of New England so I get this. It is hard but we do talk and text. We have visited her once and she has been home several times (in the year that she has been gone). My biggest fear is that she will stay out there permanently and I will be a long distance grandma someday 
Thank you all for your responses. Some wonderful suggestions. DH and I have already talked about the idea of changing our winter time yearly trip to a warmer climate from a beach vacation to a desert vacation. There are so many, many ways to communicate and keep in touch with him. Some how this “outta work” thing crept up on me. I think some of my reaction is sort of a delayed response to some other “losses” I’ve had over the last few years. I kind of have one “last hurrah” of helicopter parenting in front of me. DH and I will travel to his new area over his spring break and help him find an apartment. One or both of us will probably go with him for the actual move. We have to decide what to do with his car which still has years of life in it. I’m secretly thinking that DS and I will make the drive together and have about 25-26 hours of car time together. I do miss the trapped kid in the car days 
I’ve already figured out how I will have a few surprises from “home” for him at his new place. DS took a black and white photo of our house address in high school. It’s kind of “artsy” for a techy kid. He ended up framing it because he liked it. I’ll either secretly pack it up and bring it along for the big move or send it to him a few weeks later. Little things like that will be important to us.
Midwest to southwest is not “across the country”.
@rrah My husband and oldest son drove a uhaul truck for his move to his first post college job. 19 hours of dad-son time was priceless. Husband said he’d never want to make that drive again (he drives a lot for work), so I get no blow back when booking airfare to visit son. I was worried my frugal husband would insist we drive when visiting. I was relieved! I love the idea of surprising your son with some things from home.
We facetime (or Skype works) on a regular basis and it’s great. And we now have vacation plans! Remembering that you’re only a plane ride away works really well. The world isn’t that big.
It is hard! I would think especially so with the youngest. My oldest has lived in Asia for most of the past three years. We saw him last summer for a few days on vacation, but that has been it. The biggest challenge is the time difference of 13-14 hours depending on daylight savings time. We message back and forth, but sometimes it is hard to come up with a time to skype or facetime.
I think about my parents, however, when i graduated and moved to the west coast. No email, facebook, skype. Just the weekly phone call, which was quite costly so kept to a minimum. Now, of course, I am much more empathetic to how hard it must have been for them.
It is expensive to go to Asia, so we haven’t visited. I certainly miss him!
When DD graduated from college, she did a two year Peace Corps stint. We saw her once in the 27 months she was gone when we went to visit her halfway through her service. We found a Skype time that worked for all of us, and did it almost every week while she was gone.
This all happened the same time the other kiddo moved to the southwest.
I think we see the southwest kiddo now as much as we did when he was in grad school in the southeast.
But we do love visiting the southwest in February or March. It is lovely there…land not so lovely here!
I honestly don’t miss my far-away (3 time zones/7 time zones) kids. I don’t feel disconnected because my son calls at least once a week and I message with D frequently–sometimes daily–and Skype occasionally. When I hear their voices, I feel like they are right there. I’m so glad they are doing what they’re doing (working/grad school) and not at my house. I love the technology we have today! (I spent several years overseas when handwritten letters took a week or two and phone calls were too expensive to consider.) OP, it may be easier than you think. And a vacation opportunity, too.
Are you sure we don’t have the same son?
Mine is also a software engineer, also on the West Coast, and impossible to speak to except on weekends because he starts work late and gets out late. By the time he leaves his office, I’m asleep.
Meanwhile, my daughter, who is currently a graduate business student in the Midwest (only one time zone away 
) just told me today that she got accepted for a summer internship at a company on the West Coast. She is hoping it will lead to a full-time job a year later. I am pleased for her, of course, because she’s going to a company that she really likes, but a little voice in my head is saying, “No! Not the Pacific Time Zone again!”
I do miss my kids when they live far away, but the technology today sure makes it easier to connect. I guess I’ll find out if I prefer an empty house to one in constant flux in a couple of years!
Like so many of you, I depend on texting, Skype, Facebook, etc to keep in touch with D. We live in the northeast, she went to school in FL, and now lives in CO. Lucky for us, she regularly writes a blog, so we get to read about all of her experiences in a different way than she talks about them. S is “only” a 7-hour drive from our home. Depending on where he ends up settling, we will sell our home and buy a small place near each of our kids, as we really would like to be hands-on grandparents when the time comes!