Do you have a brother or sister on the other side of the world who is far away from the rest of the family?

My brother is in Saudi Arabia for work, while his wife is still in California, working herself. Their kids are all grown and in their thirties. he does feel isolated, but Skypes home a few times a week, and calls our mom every other week. One hard part for him is the time difference since he is 12 hours ahead of California.

My oldest son emigrated to Sweden. He left his family behind in an effort to start an entirely new life for himself, but it didn’t work. I have limited contact with him, but he is on Facebook so other family members keep me up to date.

I have one son who live s in Paris and one who lives in San Francisco. I see them both but not as often as I would like. We keep in touch by phone and text and e-mail…...

My husband lived in Bogata, Colombia for 9 months during our marriage. He flew home about once a month for a few days, or I went there. It was fine, he had been trvelling a lot with work prior to that anyway. Since we knew it was temporary and I was working full time it wasn’t terrible, but I much prefer he not live apart from me. But, just three weeks ago he moved to where we will be living and I am still back in the old city trying to get ready to sell our house. I probably won’t see him for a month.

Many years ago my husband moved to America for college, his sister lived here, but his brother was still in Mexico with his parents. I think it was tough on his parents not having their children near, but they handled it ok. His mom would visit sometimes for a couple of months. When he and I married his sister and her husband shortly after moved to the Dominican Republic. She came to visit a couple times a year, we went there once during the 4 years she lived there.

My sister and I have lived in different states since she was 14 and I was 16.

I haven’t lived in the same state as my parents since I left for college.

I know you said other side of the world, so I am not sure if any of these really qualify. Sone of them require a plane ride and some are in different countries.

A friend of ours has lived in various parts of Asia for he job. Her husband never permanently moved over there with her, but he would go sometimes for a month at a time. Almost her entire family lives very near to each other in the same state. She has 5 or 6 siblings, I can’t remember exactly how many. She also has a daughter, and during that time grand kids were born.

Pretty much it is normal to me for people to live in various places and move around.

My sister lives in China. I see her once or twice a year. She comes back for family vacation in the summer and sometimes also for Thanksgiving. In between there’s skype and so on. I think we actually see her more now than we did before the internet. Well, duh. Of course we do. She’s been in Asia since the early 80s. Now it feels like she’s around more than my brother, who lives only 100 miles away.

I use to be the one far from everyone else. It doesn’t matter if its half way across the world or only a few states away. It is difficult sometimes. Especially when you feel lonely or around holidays. Now I have my son, half way around the world.

I learn to cope by accepting that life isn’t consistent and that you can be close and still be far away. I have a sibling who lives 40 minutes away and I have not visited or called him in 2 years. We are not close as we were when very young.

I just had two of my siblings and my mom drive 6 hours to come visit me for the weekend. I wish they lived closer but we are all tied to our locations because of work and home. I was living in the same town as them but job cut backs forced us to move away for work. There simply was no work back home. Small town, tiny pay checks and no one will leave any decent jobs their until they are dead and buried.

My brother was in Korea for a year with the army. He was on facebook so often it was like he’d never left. He just complained about kimchi instead of cheeseburgers.