Everyone gone.

I am newly orphaned and can't quite get my head around it, Mum was the last of her siblings, just have one paternal aunt and uncle left. Very weird, even as an adult, as there was this massive family........no more.

All my siblings are still around, all younger than me, although not much contact, what really makes me feel old is that I only have one relative left who`s older than me, my cousin. We get on well, but I don`t see him often as we live about 150 miles from each other and neither of us drives.

I have no blood relatives apart from my children and grandchildren. It's been this way for many years so I've become accustomed to it. My husband has a large family but they are always falling out and don't really keep in touch so he is really no better off.

When my DS died in a road accident 30 years ago, I felt just like you gmelon. I do have extended family, but none of them shared my memories of childhood, only my sister. She was also the only one who shared my memories of an adored maternal grandmother.

DS means dear sister in the post above.

These are sad but useful posts. This will come to all of us in time.
My parents died in 2002 . My father was nearly 86 then. I do still miss him.

I was the youngest of five children but just my sister and me left now. Our parents and aunts and uncles all died some time ago and our last remaining cousin died last year.

My sister is eight years older than me and I dread being the last one alive.

Luckily I have two children and two grandchildren so the family will continue.

Know how you all feel. Lost my only brother 2010 he was 6 years younger than me. We were close. No next of kin now. Distant cousins one in Canada I have not seen since I was 5. It is hard.

I wish you all the best. Maybe you should write down everything you can remember from being born and details of all the family members, I don't mean like a reference work, more like a book that you can read and remember.
You can add to it whenever you remember anything new.
Might turn out to be a best seller, you never know.

I'm the oldest remainder from my bloodline. Have some younger cousins whom I seldom see. However, I am so lucky to have warm and loving memories from my past that it doesn't seem to matter too much. I do remember when my Mother died that I couldn't shake the fact that I was an orphan (horrible) even although I had a very supportive Husband right alongside me. Never quite understood that.

Yes, the same has happened to me and I was shortly going to post similar, so you’re not alone! But it feels like it doesn’t it! It’s a reminder of our own mortality and also a feeling that we’ve lost our roots somehow. I don’t know the answer...the stress of the situation has I’m sure, contributed to me being very unwell...how do we get over trauma of losing family (regardless of our relationships with them) and make sense of our own lives and come to terms with the fact that we don’t live forever....

Knowing my two sons would both be wanting the family photos when I am no longer here, \(now in their 50s) I decided to make them a photo album each one Christmas and reproduced all the photos that were most relevant to each of them right from baby pictures and duplicated many. They both said it was the best present they had ever received.

DH and I are both only children, I have no parents left, DF died 31 years ago, DM 10 years ago.
DH still has his DF, but they're not close, DH phones him twice a week and visits once, but FiL will only contact DH if he wants something. Even though he's as fit as a fiddle, and goes out dancing three nights a week, (not ballroom, slow and gentle, he jives) when he wants something, he's suddenly 'old and frail'!
I just have one maternal aunt left now, but she's not in the best of health and lives two hours drive from us. She has her DSs, DDsiL and DGDs living close by her, so quite rightly spends her time with them.
It feels a bit odd at times that I only have my DS and DGS who are closely related to me, but as an only child, I always knew this time would come!
I never wanted siblings when I was young, but now would like to have someone to natter to, turn up on doorsteps expecting coffee etc. My first boyfriend was the eldest of four, and just occasionally I wonder what it would have been like to have been part of a 'big' family, as I got on well with his parents and siblings, loved big family get togethers etc. We split because he knew for certain that he didn't want children, and I couldn't live with that! He never changed his mind, we're still friends, he and his wife have no DC, and although they've had much more 'freedom' than we have, I wouldn't change a thing! My DH is aging much more gently too, and looks far younger, he's got a bit of a 'silver fox' thing going on!

As an only child I was lucky to have had a truly enormous family of aunts, uncles and cousins, but sadly all the aunts and uncles are gone, and my cousins, all older than me, are disappearing fast. It is heartbreaking - like you, gmelon, I think wistfully of childhood memories but have only one cousin to share these with.

gmelon your message made me recall an experience I had regarding my Dad. He'd married for a second time after my Mum died in 1974 (she was 51!) and his second wife also sadly, died before him. When we visited him there was a framed photo on a bedside table of him, his second wife, and many of his friends and colleagues at a dinner dance. Without fail he'd take hold of it and say 'I'm the only one left from this photo'. It always used to bring a lump to my throat.

My father has sadly passed away now and effectively I'm an orphan. However I do have my older sister still alive and we are closer now than we've ever been. We share 'do you remember when' times when we reminisce about our childhood so I know what you mean about having someone who shared your childhood, as a lovely thing and I hold it very dear. So sad but, inevitable part of life and all that goes with it, it whizzes by in the blink of an eye. Or so it seems the older you get the quicker it goes. Sometimes I want to press the pause button and savour living just for the joy of it.

I am the oldest in my line now. One thing that surprises me is that neither of my children nor my grandchildren have ever asked me about my past, what it was like when I was a child growing up in South Africa etc. My youngest granddaughter who was about 10 asked me a few questions once, but that was for a class project set by a teacher. I seem to remember asking my grand parents a few questions, but not many, about things in their child hood and got little response. Sometimes I lie in bed and try to remember things and now they are like a dream. I should really write them down before I pop off, but will anyone want to know?

I feel for you gmelon ?
I lost my mother when I was 29 and my father at 40. They were older parents. Both DH and I are only children. DH's parents passed away last month, he is now an orphan at 67.
Only DH has memories of my parents, not my children which saddens me so much.
I had a happy childhood but no one to share the memories with.
However my children have happy memories of one set of grandparents and a great Gran,and I'm grateful for that.

Go to look at them in his home and take pictures of them on your phone, not the best but you should be able to get a decent copy.

gmelon - start writing all these memories up on a computer, maybe for your family, but mainly for yourself.

My darling Mum died 4 years ago followed by my younger brother 19 months later. I did feel very much an orphan then. To make it worst in the next few months I lost my closest cousin and my best friend from schooldays. Suddenly , apart from two distant cousins, my eldest daughter is the person who has known me the longest. My first husband died some years ago and my present DH has only known me 23 years.
When we were moving abroad I sorted through all my photos only keeping personal ones but anything with my children in I gave to my eldest daughter to sort out. She and her siblings had a lovely afternoon sorting through and taking their photos. They agreed that the albums would be kept complete and stay with my daughter. Better thay have them than maybe get discarded when I die.

I know exactly what you mean. I was the only child of two only children. When my DM died in 2007 I was left as the only member of my birth family although I have 3 DD of my own. None of my DD remembered my GP as all had died before they were born the only person who recalled my childhood was a family friend and he died a few years ago. It does make you feel very lonely when there is no one left who remembers but I try not to dwell on it and just live for now. The only thing I do think is that I probably talk more about my childhood now than I did when my own 3 children were growing up, maybe that is because it feels more important to refer to it.

Hi gmelon
I am the last in my family, my sister died last year in the summer, and has just had, what would have been, her birthday.
Our parents died when we were young so it's been just us for a long while.
It's hard, and I never thought I would be in this position, or at least so soon in my life, so I sympathize completely

Yes, immensely, hugely sad. My mum died when I was 14 and my sister died aged 48. I have been 'alone' for years and hate it.....!!! I am so very envious of people who have 'family'....

I do find it a bit odd when adults refer to themselves as orphans. I see this term as one used for a child without parents. Just the picture in my mind of little Orphan Annie.

This has occurred to me too. My parents are dead, my elder brother died. My only other blood relative, my other brother who is older than me, doesn’t speak to me. I have no idea why, jealousy I think. At my elder brothers funeral, He sat separate from the family but I hugged him (never the other way round) and said there’s only us left now, let’s keep in touch (he lives 300 miles away but I am told comes to our home town at least every month) and he agreed, but nothing. I religiously send birthday and Christmas cards but nothing in return. How sad! When he dies, that’s it. He probably thinks its a challenge and I’ll die first as he thinks he’s immortal. Hah!