Reply to “Grandma’s Last Holiday”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP back with a thank you.

So much to consider. Our DC really want to travel and be with their cousins (all young adults-college age) and I would absolutely go without DH.

I don’t add this but my last parent died a few months ago. So this is our first Thanksgiving w/o parents. My siblings and I have vowed to see each other as often as we can since our former childhood home, sold last year, was always a natural gathering place. So many emotions. [/quote]

I'm sorry, OP. That is hard. My family is also facing realigning traditions as the matriarch/patriarch grandparents who held everyone together died in the same year as my mother, who did all the hosting. What we have found is sometimes you have to make new traditions. First everything without parents is terribly hard, but it's also very hard to watch a parent slip away (saw this with my mom for a year before she died). Let your kids go see their cousins if they're adults, and you and DH go to his parents for Thanksgiving. Find another weekend that you make into a permanent thing with your siblings. Maybe that's Christmas or Easter, or another religious or secular holiday that many people have free, or just the first week of fall every year, etc.

But not going to his parents' place for this Thanksgiving won't bring your parent back, and there are other times you could see his siblings, whereas this really may be one of the last times DH's mother is mentally present for a big holiday. Even if she is alive next year and cognizant she will undoubtedly be worse than she is now. That's how dementia works. It's not always a steady progression but a year is a long time and there is simply no way she won't be worse in some fashion, even if it's not dramatic.[/quote]

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