Finding Our Way Back to Family

Elizabeth Sheridan
5 days ago
2 min read

Mom and Dad with some of their grandchildren in August, 2015

When I started this blog, I said it wouldn’t be just about teaching. Life has thrown a lot at me these last few years, and some of those lessons are worth sharing too.

In 2019, I lost my dad. Then in 2021, my mom passed away. Losing both parents so close together completely shook my family.

We had always been close—really close. Holidays, birthdays, random weeknights… we all somehow ended up at Mom and Dad’s. My kids called it “Cousins’ Night” because it wasn’t just our family—my siblings and their kids would be there too. It was loud, it was cozy, and it was home.

I knew we were lucky to have that, but I didn’t fully realize how much of that closeness centered around my parents’ home. When they were gone, the gatherings stopped. We drifted into our own little worlds, and being stuck in a pandemic definitely didn’t help.

Eventually, as I slowly worked my way out of the heaviness of losing them, I started hearing something my teens and young adults had been hinting at for a while:

“Are we going to spend time with our family again?”

Those wise young people that reminded me of how important family is

So I decided to start small. I invited everyone for the holidays—no pressure, no expectations of recreating the huge celebrations we used to have. Just a simple, “Hey, come over if you can.” And honestly? That was enough to get things moving again.

Then my sister invited everyone out to her cabin. We spent the whole day together, and something clicked. The adult nieces and nephews started saying, “We should do this more often.”

And before I knew it, Cousins’ Nights were back: dinner, games, flipping through old photo albums, and trying my sister’s freeze-dried snacks (which deserve their own fan club at this point).

And it didn’t stop there. The girls—me and my sisters—took a trip together for a family wedding. Somewhere on that trip, between laughing and solving the world’s problems, someone said, “Hey, what if we did a book club?” Fast forward, and now we actually have one. We meet on Zoom with the sisters and other women in the family, and it’s become something we all look forward to.

Somewhere along the way, we figured out how to be a family again—just… in a new way.

I’ve talked to so many people who say their families never really came back together after losing their parents. And if you’re in that place, I want to say this gently: it’s not too late. Reach out. Make the first move. Let go of the hurt if you can. We don’t all grieve the same way, and that’s okay.

I’m just really grateful we found our way back to each other. It didn’t happen all at once—but it happened. And if your family has lost its rhythm, maybe yours can find its way back too.

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