When You Have Just One Family Member Left

[mikebird]

What would you speak about when there is not one single thing in common?

Now that my mother and brother are dead, and my Dad is living alone, hating it, and so am I. We are 75 miles apart. I bought him a laptop and put Skype on it, so we can talk, with video, 24/7 with no fees at all. It took months to get him an internet connection, and more months to learn mouse, keyboard and clicking skills... still abysmally lacking. Saves on petrol

He's 84 (about the Queen's age?) and that's more a grandad to me, at 35.

We don't wanna talk about dead people. Or the weather. When Dad calls, he can't stand it past 10 seconds. That disturbs me. If I come up with anything bright or humorous, he just needs to say 'goodbye'

This makes social anxiety worse for me. I think he has it.

 

[Anomaly]

What would you speak about when there is not one single thing in common?

Even if I have things in common, finding something to speak about with anyone is a challenge the vast majority of the time.

 

[MaliceInWickedland]

I'm sorry to hear that you are dealing with such a difficult situation, one in which I can sort of relate to. My father died in a car accident when I was 7 years old, and a year later my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I thought I was going to lose her too, but thank God she survived. From then I lived with her and my grandmother until two years ago when my grandmother was diagnosed with glioblastoma (very aggressive form of brain cancer) and she passed on.

My grandmother was like a second mother to me since she was always home with me until my mom got back from work and when she died it really left my heart scattered in a million pieces. I also used to have a cat but we had to put him down last June because of.. oh what do you know - cancer of course! So that left me with no one to spend time with except my grandmother's urn for about a year until I got my new puppy recently to help kill some of my loneliness. My mom is at work from 8 to 5 and she doesn't get home until about 7, depending on traffic, so I'm home alone until then with no one but my new puppy and grandmother's urn to keep me company. Call me weird but everyday I sit in front of my grandmother's urn and talk to her as if she were still alive, just to have someone to make conversation with.

When my mom finally gets home, we sit at the table and eat dinner, making some casual conversation here and there but I can always feel the tension and awkwardness of the situation. She doesn't have social anxiety but she did have some issues with social phobia when she was my age. Even though we get along more like sisters than mother and daughter, I can't help but feel like she misunderstands me most of the time and I feel really lonely even when she arrives home because of it.

She's always smiling and happy while I'm the pessimist with a very dark and sarcastic sense of humor that people like my mother take to heart and usually get offended. I try to be as cheerful as she is but I always fail to do so no matter how hard I try and whenever I try to lighten the mood and joke around with her she takes it too seriously and that always leads to tension between us. Sometimes after dinner we'll watch tv together for a while but it's mostly silence between us for that time. Then on weekends we go out together but they usually end sourly with me and her getting into an argument over whatever silly little trifle makes its way onto the path we're walking together.

I honestly don't even know what to make of our relationship anymore. We're always going back and forth. One day we'll be talking normally for once. The next we'll be fighting again. I want to hold onto my mother for dear life since she's the only family I have left but I don't know what to do because we're always fighting and we don't really seem to get along at all anymore. I feel like without my mother I won't be able to go on, but at the same time I need to learn to be independent and get used to being on my own, especially with college and the real world altogether coming up.

 

[mikebird]

Whooooo!

Well, it seems a few people get cancer. Rough. Bro's melanoma is my best description, as a layman medic, which started on skin, and spread to to all organs, such as eye and all internals, making strange shapes of 'em. Most uncles, aunties all gone. I'm amazed I'm non-cancer so far, with curious immune history, still getting more complex... still vertical!

I thought it was in the family. So the outer world, too. A heroic uncle died a bit before we met, when he was a 19-yr-old soldier in WWII. Len.

After what's happened to me, in intensive care, with each one a unique reason, gives me a very good take on reality, with a good reason to smile right now, while alive. When something bad happens, I think I'll deal with it OK, laughing, possibly. With a reason to celebrate the past

 

[planemo]

I actually have a full set of family, immediate family that is, but I really feel alone with them anyway. I pretty much do everything on my own - since childhood, and things haven't changed much. My mum is usually too busy to notice me, my father prefers not to notice me as does my sister and my bro is too caught up in his own world I guess. So yeah I regard myself as having no family in a way. I usually keep quiet when we eat, and I prefer to do things on my own including such things as driving and running errands. My mum however means a lot to me, and I kinda wonder how different things would be if she perhaps would notice that I exist and have genuine problems. I realize that she's the only person I'm not afraid to love, and that one day I will never see her again. I dread that day, as she is the only reason the other four of us bare each other out. When she's gone I guess I will truly be alone then. What will I have to say to the others of my family then? not much - I guess it will be awkward and something I'll dread.