I'm having a very tough time right now with this very subject. I'm a New Englander and just lost another child to California. The older one moved out there a few years ago to pursue his dreams in the graphic arts, and is now married and just bought his first house there. He called this week to say they are expecting their first child.

My younger son moved to California 3 weeks ago to pursue his dreams in the music business.

I also have a brother, cousins, etc in CA. It's nice that THEY all have family to get together with, but I'm the one who stayed at "the old home place" and got left without much family. My elderly mother lives nearby and depends on us, and that's part of the reason we stay here - besides loving New England.

So, despite the joy of my older son's announcement about the baby, and despite the high hopes for my younger son's musical career, I'm wallowing in self-pity at the moment, thinking about the two sons, daughter-in-law and grandchild I'll see only rarely. I have a busy life and dreams and adventures of my own, but I always expected that it would include my children and grandchildren.

I'm steeped in bluegrass and old-time music that cherishes the traditional values of home and family, and I keep hearing those old songs. It seems like everyone around me has family that lives down the street, but I know that's not true. It must be the ones who don't who write songs like "The Fields Have Turned Brown" and "Family Reunion."

Thanks for the reality of this thread, to remind me that other families have even greater distances between them.

The Fields Have Turned Brown
Carter Stanley

I left my old home to ramble this country
My mother and dad said, "Son, don't go wrong
Remember that God will always watch o'er you
And we will be waiting for you here at home."

(Chorus)
Son, don't go astray was what they both told me
Remember that love for God can be found
But now they're both gone this letter just told me
For years they've been dead, the fields have turned brown.

For many long years, this world I have traveled
No thoughts of the days when I would return
Now as I go home I find no one waiting
The price I have paid to live and to learn.