Family

It’s not hard to let the mind wander to visions of fires, pumpkin spice, the jittery excitement of the holidays right around the corner. If you’re already making your autumn plans, don’t miss these clever ideas for activities to do with your grandkids…

In funeral parlance, ‘green burial’ may be the most hyped phrase around. References to this ‘new’ and seemingly popular type of disposition seem to be everywhere these days, particularly in the press…

Estrangement describes the condition where a person experiences physical and/or emotional distance from one or more family members. If you’ve been estranged, someone decided that leaving the relationship was a necessary act of self-preservation…

Some people avoid any discussion of death and dying, but I have always found the subject fascinating.
You are here one minute and gone the next. Very strange. And much harder for all those around you than it is for you, yourself…

My husband passed away this June after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Years ago, I had joined a group of Parkinson’s spouses who met monthly to support each other. We were all around the same age, going through the same quandaries…

It seems like yesterday I was singing these songs to my own daughter. Heck, it seems like yesterday I was learning them. And now it’s time to teach them to my children’s children. For me, it’s for my great nieces and nephews, as I am…

Years ago, I met a rather formidable older French woman who told me, in the course of our conversation, that she had offered all her grandchildren a trip away of their own choice, when they reached age 13. She had five or six grandchildren….

If you divorced in your 50s or 60s, you’re familiar with that feeling. Some of us know it all too well, both during divorce and afterwards. It rears its head when one of your grown children, after spending the weekend with your ex…

Feeling numb, dumbfounded, angry, and depressed over the angst of being cut off from a family member is expected. Estrangement can occur with adult children, mothers, fathers, siblings, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and grandchildren…

“How’s everything?” I innocently asked someone whom I hadn’t seen in a long time. She immediately said everything was fine. She added that one child was entering high school and the other starting his senior year in high school so…