As a child, I was blessed with a fairly close knit extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins who all lived within an hour or less of each other. We saw each other often, we kids ran into each other at school events, etc. etc. We got together without fail every summer for one full weekend at a summer camp, and every Christmas Day at one of our homes for a huge family extravaganza.

Despite having basically ignored these ties for 23 years, when I returned to my home area 6 years ago after leaving The Family, I was welcomed back with no reservations, along with my children, and resuming these ties was a joy.

In the last 6 years, two uncles and three aunts have passed away, and another uncle has succumbed to advancing senility. The cousins are scattered geographically, the summer camp location for our annual reunions is gone, and Christmas Day has moved to a restaurant and decreased significantly in size.

I am writing this because one aunt and one uncle, my godfather, have died in the last week. Another funeral coming up on Saturday. It feels like the ending of an era, and it saddens me to think that I was gone for so many years and now it's "too late."

And even more than that- I distinctly remember my parents, when I was a teenager, talking sadly about how they were losing so many friends and family members and attending so many funerals. Now I know what they meant- it's a sad rite of passage, I guess, as we get older.

Despite the fact that, as I have previously written on this board, I sometimes wish I'd not had 6 kids, right now I think to myself, "Thank God I have the opportunity to grow my family- as my kids get older, have their own families, etc." And I guess we'll have to try to create our own new traditions.

Anybody else ever experience this? Or am I just being depressing- I hope not, if so, my apologies!

Laura