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Family communication

How often do you talk to your family? Every day? Once a week? Once a month?

Do you have a big family?

I am the youngest of five. By the time I was in a junior in high school, my siblings were all married and moved out. We got together atleast once a week. Every Sunday after church they'd all come home for a big meal.

The house would smell so good, and be full. Children would be running around (my nieces and nephews), adults would be chatting, Mom would be cooking, dad and my brother's would be sitting around talking about hunting or baseball or something manly.

It was great, by far some of my favorite memories.

Unfortunately things aren't like that anymore. My dad died the summer before my senior year, and half way through the year my mom moved to Indiana, I moved in with some friends to finish high school and that was the end of big family meals. We still got together for Holidays though, and that was wonderful.

Somehow things changed drastically. It seems like half of my family doesn't even talk to the other half. My mom lives in Texas now, I'm in North Carolina and the others are still in Maine. I miss the big family gatherings, I miss just knowing that we all like each other and get along!

Sometimes I feel like sending out communication letters, making sure everyone knows it's okay to talk to each other no matter what is going on. My sisters and I talk at least every other week, my mom and I talk almost every day, either on the phone or on instant messenger, but the only time I talk to my brothers or their wives is if someone is pregnant or just had a baby, or if there is some other big announcement.

So what happened? Is it just that we all got older and have our own families? I'm not sure what it is, but boy do I miss big family meals.

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