Sunday evening was always family night for our household. It was the night I "cooked new," according to one son, referring to inevitable leftovers on Monday and Tuesday. On Sundays, though, we'd eat more leisurely, more elegantly and more enjoyable than the rest of the week. We'd pray, talk, and, at the end of the meal, go over our calendars for the coming week.

After our eldest left for college far away, we would put the tape recorder on during the Sunday meal and then send the taped conversation to her. One Sunday we forgot to turn the recorder off and she heard us synchronizing our schedules for the rest of the week. When she called later, she said, "I loved hearing you go through calendars. It told me what everybody was doing. I felt like I was really there."

Our three are gone now, far from Jim and me, but they tell us they still feel they're here-and that please us. Staying connected is the goal we strive for in keeping a sense of family when we're miles apart. It isn't easy, though. It requires concentrated effort, but it pays off in close relationships, ongoing bonding and a sense of unity.

Sadly, many families seem unable to achieve this unity. When their children leave home, they're considered "out there," not "here in spirit." Parents talk to me about losing their children rather than enjoying their children's new life with them. Understandably, they feel a great sense of loss, some even of abandonment, but it doesn't have to be that way.

'Leaving' or 'new life'?

We can view our offspring's' egress as their leaving us or as their embracing a new life. If we rejoice with them and support them in their journey, they realize that we are still with them in spirit regardless of the distance separating us. They know we care and understand their need to venture out to educational jobs and opportunities that are unavailable near home. Home, then, becomes a loving support system to them, not a place.

If, however, we focus on the loss of their physical presence, we send the message, "We have lost you. We are bereft," and we risk instilling deep feelings of guilt over being abandoned.

Some children who leave home often do not really want to, but education, marriage and the job market demand otherwise. If they feel guilty, they will eventually feel resentful as well. How many of us who settled five hundred or two thousand miles away from our parents dreaded calling home because we knew we'd hear sadness and anger in our parents' voices?

Making separation endurable

Separation is always difficult for those who live, but it can be endurable to those who leave inherit support rather than censure. "Valentine's Day just wasn't the same without you," censures our young ones. "We thought of you tonight when we ate our heart cookies," tells them they are with us, we are with them in tradition and spirit. How we react to their absence determines our connectedness.

Continuing to carry on family traditions spells continuity to those who leave. Alex Haley calls family traditions the conveyor belt of family history. Those little traditions take on great importance because they are the anchor of family unity when children leave home.

An Italian-American family I know always sends their grown children an Easter bread with a hard-boiled egg baked in it. Another family bakes a birthday cake in honor of an absent member, blows out the candles, shares what they miss most about their absent offspring, and then calls and tells her. Another family utilizes traveling greeting cards: each family member writes a new message and sends it back and forth.

Traditions aside, families who manage to achieve a continuing sense of family in spite of distance get into their young adults' new lives. It takes extra effort but is tells grown children that we care about them in their new environment, not just in our own familiar one.

When they talk about their roommates, courses, homes, children, spouses and jobs, we ask about them in later calls and letters even if that means taking notes during a phone call. When young folks say accusingly, "I told you about that, " it's a sign that they feel their lives are not a important to us as when they were at home.

I recall the pleasure I felt years ago when my mother asked me about a troublesome student in my class. She cares. I thought; she really cares about me and my teaching. It was, no doubt, an early sign to me that parents can be present to their faraway children, emotionally if not physically.

Staying connected means that we enter into their lives, not as critical parents but as interested friends and supporters. We ask about that chauvinistic employer, that exciting professor, those special friends, that new apartment (there's always, always a new apartment), the latest love and their children's school activities.

It's difficult to remain bonded, though, if we don't stay connected in the first place. Staying connected means writing frequent letters, making phone calls, e-mails, sending surprise cards or boxes for no reason at all.

Making audio tapes, sending photos and writing special personal notes are other ways of staying connected. Or try synchronizing their visits home; this can be frustrating but worth the time together. Some families meet at a camp, resort or mountain cabin every few years for a reunion vacation.

Family professionals tell us that the cousin concept is in danger of dying out in our mobile society. The close relationship that cousins once had playing together every Sunday at Grandma's is almost extinct. Many cousins, even those living close by, do not see each other often and do not have that strong bond cousins used to experience.

I hate the thought of my children's children not knowing or caring about one another. Yet, if there is not a deliberate effort in the form of family reunions, holiday and non-holiday get-togethers and family vacations, it's likely they will be acquaintances rather than cousins.

Spiritual connectedness

Spiritual connectedness is also valuable in forging family unity. The most agnostic son or daughter is relieved when parents say, "We're praying especially hard for you this exam week," or "Say a prayer for us this week when we're on the road."

Many years ago at a family retreat I directed, we set aside time for families to write their own family prayer on their children's level of understanding. Each family read their prayer at liturgy. We then encouraged them to take it home, print it nicely, post it and read it together weekly to recall the spirit they experienced at the retreat.

We have such a prayer that we read every Sunday evening. As each of our children left, we gave them a copy saying, "We will be with you in the Spirit on Sunday nights. If you remember to say this prayer then, fine. You don't have to , but we want you to know we'll be praying especially for you at that time."

I seriously doubt that they read it every Sunday, but Jim and I continue to say our special Sunday prayer-and they know it. We've been accustomed to hearing them say on the phone, "Send some heavy duty prayers my way this week, OK?" When children know they're in their parents' prayers, they know we care.

The tone of correspondence

The tone of our correspondence and calls also needs examination. We must be careful to suppress criticism and disapproval, realizing they are their own persons. More than anything else, they need to know w are affirming and supportive. We aim for their comment, "I always feel so good after talking with you." We need to stay positive, encouraging and stable because in many ways, we remain a major anchor in their lives.

Visits from our children and visits to them are of great value, even if it means giving up a January visit to Florida sunshine. They love to show us around, introduce us to their friends and employers and have them experience their milieu. This connects us to their daily lives rather than having them connect with ours.

We need to let our children know, too, that families exist for the bad times along with the good ones. So we encourage them to call when they're down, when their love life goes sour or when demands beleaguer them. A steady parent response, "You'll get through this," is often all they need to hear.

One of my greatest parenting joys comes in renegotiating our relationship with young adults from parents to friends and supporters. They don't want advice unless they ask for it. They want support; they want to know that even though they're gone, we're happy and stable. They don't want to hear us complain about each other or talk about our loneliness.

Yes, we are lonely without them at times, but parental caregiving is temporary; we know that when they come into our lives as infants. Part of our task is to prepare them to live without us and prepare ourselves to live without them. If loneliness becomes overwhelming, we need to look at our marriage and take steps to revitalize it at this stage in life.

Couples who begin sharing new interests, getting involved in volunteer work together, or making a marriage renewal retreat before the nest is empty are those best prepared to deal with the loss of the physical presence of children because their focus is on regaining the rewards of being a couple: couple time, freedom, money and romance. It can be a wonderfully satisfying time of life- or it can be miserable. The choice is ours.