After Your Parents are Gone

I have heard this saying a lot lately and I remember my Mom telling me that she was a little worried about this same thing.

I had thought about it and had seen other families as they went through the process of losing both of their parents.

Sometimes I noticed that the families would just drift apart.

And I wondered how this would affect our family as well.

So I took notice when our brother Dean passed away it was very hard to watch both of my parents grieve for their son. We still tried to gather around our parents to soothe all of our grief.

Then less than a year later our Daddy passed away and we all rallied around our Mom to soothe her grief.

When Mom became ill with Alzheimer’s, we once again rallied for our Mom.

All the time I kept wondering how her passing would affect our family closeness and I remembered what she had said to me about how she worried that her children would lose touch with each other when she was gone. Through all of this I love the way that Jackie has been the one to make sure that we all stay in touch. By either a phone call to each of us or by organizing an impromptu breakfast because Terry was going to be in town.

I appreciate Jackie’s ability to gather everyone together and I love her for that.

Mark and Jackie graciously welcomed us into their home one Sunday in May and Jackie cooked up a wonderful breakfast and we all gathered and visited and had a good day.

This last week  my brother Terry and his wife Cathy were going to be in Wichita and I was on vacation so I had them over for an impromptu lunch.  Unlike Jackie I didn’t have any luck gathering any of the other siblings, but I had a much needed one on one visit with Terry and Cathy. Anyway, I was wondering about other people’s family dynamics after their parents pass away. Do you struggle with keeping the family together or is it easy for you?