Family You Grew Up Around

[TickTockMan]

A few months ago I went to a family reunion. The person I wanted to see the most didn't make it even though he lived in town. He just passed away at 86. He was my great uncle by marriage. With him gone I only have 3 great aunts, a great uncle by marriage, and a great aunt's long term boyfriend left. Odd for me to think when I was a kid they were my current age.

Getting old is a kick in the nuts.


How many of the family you grew up around are still alive?

 

[me203]

A few of my parents' siblings are still alive. But a few others have died in the last few years. My grandparents are long gone. My parents are also gone (and they were the ones I had the most contact with growing up--we lived a significant distance from away from anyone else).

Odd for me to think when I was a kid they were my current age.

Every so often, something happens to make me think of something like this. And before too much longer, I'll reach a point where I will have lived to an older age than my mother did.

 

[Rickrock]

My parents, grandparents and all of my aunts and uncles are gone. A couple of my first cousins are also gone, but I still have 6 first cousins left as well as 2 brothers and 2 sisters. I am fairly old so it is not unusual. My generation will now be the next generation to go.

 

[LeicsDom]

Of the family I grew up with only my parents have died.
As I am the eldest child I expect to be the next to go
I didn't have grandparents or aunts & uncles that I saw regularly so they aren't missed

 

[Dargelos]

This will not be the kind of answer that you were looking for but this is how it is. People from the past are in the past, they can stay in the past. Are they still alive? Don't know don't care. As long as my man and I are together, nothing else matters.

 

[jjonn3]

My Mom is still around - all the aunts and uncles are gone.

I still have frequent contact with 1 cousin - texting and e-mailing jokes mostly. The other cousins I was not that close to growing up so I keep up with them "second hand" either through Mom or the one cousin I am in touch with. I really should make the effort to contact them so that after Mom goes I will still have some connection with them.

 

[TickTockMan]

This will not be the kind of answer that you were looking for but this is how it is. People from the past are in the past, they can stay in the past. Are they still alive? Don't know don't care. As long as my man and I are together, nothing else matters.

To be honest that is mostly how I think as well, but the older I get the more sappy I am becoming. I think it's because I am single.

 

[bendted]

I will soon have the United States all to myself. My brother and his wife will be moving to France (because the wife fears Trump and their children live there).

 

[lockeroomguy]

All of my relatives of my parents generation and earlier have passed on. My siblings and I are now the "old people". Fortunately all of my siblings are still alive, but we are now at the age where losses will soon be inevitable.

 

[me203]

Past what I said above, I still have cousins, although I'm only in somewhat regular contact with one (Christmas mailing). I haven't seen any of them in years. They were all younger than me--and the age gap felt pretty significant when I was young. Even I know time passes and people get older, there is a slight feeling of disbelief sometimes when I hear about a cousin's kid who is now older than I was when I last saw that cousin!

 

[EddMarkStarr]

My siblings and I are still around, but the old neighborhood is gone. There's very few today who can even believe there was a time when segregated blacks lived together in individual homes on spacious lots, setting the front lawn for an afternoon game of badminton or croquet, and generational grandparents enjoying an afternoon tea - everything I lived as a child, no longer exists.

 

[NotHardUp1]

This will not be the kind of answer that you were looking for but this is how it is. People from the past are in the past, they can stay in the past. Are they still alive? Don't know don't care. As long as my man and I are together, nothing else matters.

Respectfully, there in an explicit separation there that implies lack of continuity. The person you and your partner loves IS from that past, so it is being carried forward every day. We are inherently connected to our past, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Time, life, society, and our personal history are all on the same continuum.

People from the past may or may not still be interacting with us as living persons, but there is nothing unusual about a person who has more years behind him than ahead of him, tending to look at them at least as much as he does looking to the future. As a man chisels a statue in marble, he constantly stops to assess what he has done so far, and then he proceeds to return to work on finishing it.

One cannot help but also wonder what becomes of gay men whose life has been solely defined by a spouse or partner relationship after one of them dies, or leaves. Does he move on to another life mate? Does he reconnect with his bonds from the past? Does he rely on broader immediate connections not from the past? Or does he crawl onto the funeral pyre alongside?

In the years on JUB, we have seen members post of all of them, short of the immolation.

 

[NotHardUp1]

A few months ago I went to a family reunion. The person I wanted to see the most didn't make it even though he lived in town. He just passed away at 86. He was my great uncle by marriage. With him gone I only have 3 great aunts, a great uncle by marriage, and a great aunt's long term boyfriend left. Odd for me to think when I was a kid they were my current age.

I can't get past that adverb (or adjective, depending on how you parse it).

You have enumerated five seniors who share your childhood and family memories to whatever degree they remember them.

In my estimation, you have an embarrassment of riches, all the more in a day and age in which we can communicate instantly via phone, text, email, and social media.

Whether you find a cousin, niece, nephew or other to share your interest in family stories, for your own enjoyment if not legacy, reach out regularly to them and interview them as well as sharing your own accounts. Old people generally love to talk. Even more, they love for someone to listen.

I think you're quite lucky. You've realized the importance of those people while they can yet answer questions. Asking open-ended questions is important, as searching for specific answers may cause you to miss some hidden gem of a story that you'd never hear if you didn't open the door to it. This website has other helpful tips: https://www.americanancestors.org/conducting-family-history-interview

When I taught English to teenagers, we led them in how to not only journal, but to interview family for a local history writing project. It was fun, if not entirely golden.

 

[Dargelos]

You have clearly thought deeply about this. We will not be leaving, there is no possibility of that. Except when for when one of us has an appointment at the other place. That is a thing I just can not think about.

 

[PrinceCory]

As of last month, all of my Aunt's and Uncle's have passed on. After my Dad passes, me and my 4 siblings will be the oldest generation. I'm nearly 70 and my Mom passed at age 76. My Dad is 24 years older than I am.

 

[peeonme]

All of my aunts and uncles are gone, I have a half cousin and some cousins out there somewhere. I also have an older brother who is an only child.