Reply to Is it selfish to move abroad for good when you're an only child?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP again. I should also say that my parents weren't elderly when they died. Mom early 50s, Dad early 60s.

Given that I grew up in a small town with Mom & Dad's family no more than 10 minutes away I guess I had expected more understanding.

Dad felt very alone and down too. He also missed my Mom.

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It would not have gotten easier to care for them if they had died older. You would have been even more invested in your "adopted country" and your kid's lives would only have gotten more complicated.

It is hard, when you are in one phase of your life, to anticipate what comes next. Many upper income American kids stretch their wings in their 20's and do what seems fun or exciting to them. That is pretty normal here, culturally.

It would have been nice for your parents' relatives to help them, but it probably boils down to how close they had been before they got sick. Did the relatives feel any affection/ duty to them and/or, how much bandwidth did they have in their own lives? It was not about you or what they owed you. If they had helped them, it would likely have stemmed from them feeling bad for your parents because their child had made choices that set them up to be alone.

I wish kids could think ahead when they move far away. They are not only handicapping their ability to support aging parents, but they are greatly limiting how close their parents will be to their children. A sad outcome of modern American priorities.

(It may not be all about income and opportunity. Sometimes it is really about love and relationships.) I think that your post may reflect the fact that you are realizing that now, too late.

But I don't think you sound like a bad person or child. I think you could now know at 27 what you know now. And this is how everything played out. Probably best that you move on.

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