I just called to say “I love you”!
Posted by Isabel on April 7th, 2008. Filed under: Back in the Day, They're just my family.When I was about five years old, my family moved from Utah to Corvallis, Oregon so my dad could attend Oregon State University. I don’t remember much about actually leaving family and friends in Utah and moving away. I just remember being in Oregon.
One time my mom and I flew, all by ourselves, to Utah for my great-grandpa’s funeral. We left my dad and older brothers at home. We couldn’t afford plane tickets for all of us. People just didn’t fly back then like they do now.
Another summer my folks packed up our pick-up truck, put my brother and I in the back of the truck (it was the 70’s-we threw caution to the wind), and drove to Utah to visit my mom’s family. I think I remember my mom’s little sisters and my grandma coming out to Oregon once to visit us. But that’s it. We just didn’t see family that much while we lived in Oregon.
I doubt that being away from family was hard for my dad. Mostly because we were still raising his brother, and my parents had already raised the rest of his siblings. Plus, my dad had moved away from home when he was about 18. He was used to being on his own.
My mom was different. She had lived in the same house since she was born. When she and my dad got married, they set roots in Salt Lake City, and admittedly, my mom thought they’d live in their first house for the rest of their lives. She hadn’t dreamt that they’d sale that house, pack up their little family and move away from the place she’d lived her entire life.
I remember my mom sitting down at the kitchen table with me and writing letters to her mom. I would get out my crayons and draw pictures for my mom to include in the letters to grandma back in Utah. In return I would get sweetly written letters in return from my grandma and my aunts. My mom saved some of their cards to me and they say cute things like “we miss you” and “we hope you had a good birthday. We heard your party was fun.”
This was long before e-mail and live chats. This was years before cell phones and check long distance rates (it was .25 cents, a minute, to call during the middle of the day). Heck this was even before people really used cassettes recorders to send taped messages to family and friends. We simply relied on the good old United States Postal Service to keep in touch with each other. My mom lived for the typed letters she got from her mom. She especially got excited when my grandma would send us a package of goodies.
During our time away from my mom’s family, a tradition was started. Since it was too expensive to call one another, except for special occasions, my mom and grandma would call each other and let the phone only ring once. That way, when we heard the one ring on the phone we knew that grandma, all the way in Utah, was thinking about us and sending us her love.
I remember asking my mom, from time to time, if we could call Grandma and let it ring once. I knew what it meant to do this and I wanted to also send my love to her. I would sit on my mom’s lap, and help her dial the phone and then hurriedly hang it up after that one special ring.
We had a good life while we lived in Oregon. At least I remember it that way. While we lived there my older brother/uncle Teddy graduated from high school and went on his LDS mission to Peru. My mom got pregnant and had my younger brother in Oregon. My dad graduated from O.S.U., and my mom got pregnant with my baby sister. My mom gave birth the day we moved back to Utah.
It wasn’t until I moved away to Seattle that I really thought about what my parents move to Oregon must have been like. They must have been so nervous about the road they were about to embark on. Not only were they packing up and moving, but my dad was quitting his job so he could go to college. That alone is a huge thing. And to do this while raising your own kids and your siblings had to weigh on them both. Especially since they were leaving the family support system that had always been there for them.
I get overwhelmed when I think about the fact that Babboo will grow up not knowing my family very well. I get sad when I’m reminded of all the things they are missing out on. I work really hard at teaching him who Grandma and Grandpa are. We talk about how we take a plane to visit them. I show him pictures and videos and we talk about all of my family that aren’t with us on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis.
And every few Saturday’s Babboo and I sit down together and draw pictures to mail to grandma and grandpa. And when we’re done coloring we pick up the phone and call my parents house, but thanks to free cell minutes on the weekend, we don’t have to hang up after that first ring.
And we can talk for as long as we want.
So tell me, how do you stay in touch with family and friends that live far away?
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My latest New Thing involves using something that is meant for your girl-parts on your face. And liking it.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I’ve always envied families that live close together. My xbf’s fam all lived within 1/2 hour of each other and saw each other all the time. My family, however, lives all over the place and always has. I got to see my grandparents and aunts only rarely, and sadly it hasn’t changed. When I have kids of my own, it’s gonna be hard to make sure they know their family.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
You always have the best posts!!!!!!!
Now, we live very close to my family but my husband’s family lives about 10 hours away. We use our webcam a fair amt to stay in touch other than phone calls.
Also, thank goodness for digital pictures and mpg videos. Well and also thank goodness that they are retired and dont mind long car drives so can come visit a fair amount.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
My Dad still lives in Africa and while it’s not expensive to call him (using a calling card. Verizon charges $18 for 5 mins) It’s so hard to find the time to stay committed to calling and keeping in touch.
I feel like a bad daughter some times.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
You certainly know how to get someone to click over to your latest “New Thing”!
April 7th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
My sister and I email each other about once a week and talk about once a week too. We also send each other cards just because. They are the best to get because they are always a surprise. I bet your family would love Babboos artwork like I love getting my neice’s. She has recently started writing me “letters” too, which my sister writes most of it and my neice fills out certain words.
My parents suck at keeping in contact with me unless I call them. Bleh.
Oddly enough, my husband is better at keeping in touch probably than I am. He talks on the phone to his mother and two sisters at least once or twice a week. Geesh. But he is chatty cathy on the phone anyway.
I am actually pretty good at keeping touch with my friends from TN just because I miss them so much! Probably like you are with May.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
My husband talks to his family in Poland using the the web-camera 2 or 3 times a week. They bought a laptop just so they could talk to us! It’s great because they can actually see how Eryk can walk, wave bye-bye, and hear how he says “Dada.”
April 7th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Great post. We stay in touch thanks to free cell minutes. I couldn’t survive without them!
April 7th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Your post made me a little teary. I wonder: will any of our convenient means of keeping in touch now mean as much as those single-ring phone calls to your grandma? I could almost feel see the whole event: you carefully dialing the phone number, waiting with both excitement and anxiety for that solitary ring, the rush to hang up before the second ring came. What a sweet, sweet memory. Makes our instant messaging, free cell phone minutes and emails seem so fleeting in comparison.
Thanks for sharing!
April 7th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
That is so sweet!
Luckily, I’ve never had to live far away from anyone who was close to me for an extended period of time. My cousin moved to Oregon for about 5 months when I was 14 and we wrote letters and called each other. I kinda grew up in the email and internet era, so I’m pretty lucky when it comes to that kind of stuff. 
April 7th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I call my mom every single day. Not always to talk for very long, sometimes I just tell her about a funny thing that happened or a cute pair of shoes I saw. I love that I can just touch base with her quickly from time to time.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
What a beautiful story about your phonecalls to your grandma. That will make a great family history story to pass down to your children and grandchildren. I live within 20 minute of my family. I see my mom 1-2 times a week, sometimes more. Sadly, it took her being severly ill, almost dying, for me to realize, and take advantage of this blessing. My husbands family lives about 15 minutes away (which may sound like a bad episode of Everybody Loves Raymond) but they’re really great, so we appreciate having them so close! Thanks for your great post!
April 7th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
The only family I have that live far away is my brother and sister in law who will be living in NC about nine more months while my brother finishes seminary/grad. school. It’s about an 8 hour drive. We talk on the phone, email, use My.Space, etc, and they visit several times per year. It’s not that hard actually. Of course, he’ll be deployed to Iraq Jan. 09 as a chaplain, so that could be a little harder…we shall see.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
OH I just loved your story about the one ring to grandma. What a great story.
April 7th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
It must be a Grandma thing the world over, my Grandma would ask us to ring once and then hang up after we had arrived back after the long trip back from her house.
Now at 84 she is on email, there’s nothing like an email from my Grandma to make my day.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
I’m also so jealous of people who live near their families. I was born and raised in the same town and even the same house. Now that we live a few hours away, I call my mom and talk to her probably a lot longer than I should, but I try to do it when the “free nights and weekends” thing kicks in. (but mostly I forget about those until it’s too late) I’ll call about something silly or stupid and then the next thing I know we’ve been on the phone for an hour! A friend of mine and her husband actually moved back to our home town after they had a baby so they could be close to their families. I’m starting to think that maybe that’s not such a bad idea.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:49 am
I stay in touch with my family out of state by my blog. And by emails back and forth and phone calls too.
I remember those days of traveling everywhere by car, and writing notes to the grandparents. I used to do this with my Mom too and always looked forward to the notes and stuff my grandmother would send me.
It’s those memories you cherish. Great post.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:35 am
This is a subject near and dear to my heart because over two years ago I traded in my long distance relationship with my boyfriend for a long distance relationship with my family when I moved 3,000 miles away from home to live with my boyfriend. It was a huge step for me because my family is very close — emotionally and geographically speaking. My grandma lives in the same town she has lived in all her life and until recently, my great-aunt lived two doors down (in the house my grandma grew up in) and my older brother and his wife were around the corner. Now they’re about five miles away, but everyone is still close, except me. It’s ROUGH sometimes, but I do think we make more effort due to the distance. There is a lot of texting and emails and digital photos flying cross-country (thank goodness for the Internet — we love Facebook for keeping in touch), plus phone calls and as many visits as we can manage. Whenever my family gets together in any combination larger than four people at a time, they call me and pass the phone around the room. I love that. My mom keeps in touch with my boyfriend’s mom and his sister now too (who live down the road from us — I traded one geographically close family for another, you see), so we have this amazing news network — I tell one person something and then within minutes everyone knows! The world is a little bit smaller every day and the idea of living far away is not as daunting as it once was.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
I guess I’m lucky. All of my family lives near, so I don’t have to find ways to keep in touch with them. To be honest, I can’t imagine living far away from my parents. Ever. I am too close with them.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
My blog does the lion’s share of the work, but we also call at least 3 times a week.
April 9th, 2008 at 3:41 am
If I were there, I would pull your hair for making me cry!
It’s been very interesting to me to see how my little family has really banded together over the past 2 months with the passing of my Grandma. Phone calls are always ended with I love you, and hugs usually last a bit longer. I hope we always do this from now on. I think it would make my Grandma so happy.