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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, what are you looking for here? Youve discounted embracing friends and people you meet through volunteering as family...what’s left?  Maybe instead of volunteering in a critical need area you can volunteer with children and become close that way.  My kids don’t have any grandparents and we’d love to “adopt” a grandma.  Or volunteer in a nursing home, probably a lot of lonely  people there, too, who could use help. [/quote]

I haven't discounted anything! I, btw, have worked with special needs children for 35 years. I now work with all ages, and still teach. I think you don't understand. I can find people,  I can find things to do, or places to go. I miss having a family, that's all.  When I was in my 30s and 40s, family was everything. Children, mine and others, my nieces and nephews,  were everywhere. There were beach days with kids with sandy bathing suits, surprise waves,  and my Mom putting sunblock on everyone, we shared picnics, birthdays with crowds singing Happy Birthday , parties for my parents' anniversaries,  celebrations for everything, daily or weekly  phone conversations, etc. My parents came over a lot, and they loved being with their grandchildren. When they got older, after vibrant and full lives,  they declined suddenly one after another with devastating illnesses- dementia and heart failure.  It was an 8 year tsunami of increasing loss, desperation, and, finally, death in two hospice rooms. I was with them all the way. They were never alone. When I emerged, I realized that everything had changed.  My husband and I will not have what my parents had. It is no one's fault,  just the way life is. 
Sure, we can hang out with my friends and their families. I have plenty of friends- but it is their family.   I have a lovely husband, so I am not complaining about how lucky I've been. However, the music has stopped and it is deafening. I thought there would be part 2, however irrational that is.

Thanks all, just the same.

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