Family perspective and changing roles

Good morning! I assume that, if you’re here, you taken my advice, and, stopped reading blogs long enough to get your estate documents together for your family in the event of your demise.

Good. You may stay here, now.

Anyway, my dad and I are back home after a whirlwind trip to Michigan this weekend due to my uncle’s illness and death. Everything went well for the most part, and, I daresay that, despite the reason for the trip, it was kind of fun for my dad to see his nieces, and, for them to look at pictures and share memories.

It was also interesting for me to spend that kind of time with my father, I found out a lot of things about his family that I never really knew. He is the youngest of 3 kids, and, his brothers were a great deal older than he, so, not only did he really not know them until adulthood, but, also, my first cousins are also many years older than I am, and, I have never met them until this weekend.

It was weird for me to listen to my cousins and my dad talk about things that involved my uncle, my dad and my grandfather, because they have such a different perspective on things. They knew my dad as a young man, and, to them, his dad, was a doting and active grandfather, while, to me, our grandfather was a frail, elderly man.

However, one of the stranger things for me is that I was “in charge” of our travel.

While I’m an adult, and, perfectly capable of doing these things, I guess somewhere in my brain I am used to my father taking care of such things. It’s not that he can’t do it, and, I know it’s because I travel more than he does, and, it was just easier for me to make the plans, and, execute them, it was just strange for me to be in the role.

So, while it was sad, things are OK, there’s still some work left to do, but, hopefully, we are done with the death and dying thing for a while.