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Picture Perfect Families Aren’t Real

PomeroySays
6 min readJan 21, 2025

I know there is no such thing as a perfect family, but tell that to my “cousin”. This person is not technically a cousin, but here in the Midwest, everyone in the circle of a family is referred to as a cousin.

I’ll call her C., and she is a little younger than me. She has the perfect family. Hallmark Channel perfect. Her parents are in their 70’s but still hanging in there. Her dad though I would have guessed was in his 80’s and appears extremely unhealthy. Now, in hindsight, I can see the signs I missed with my grandparents. I can see when an elderly person is getting worse with their health not better. It’s obvious to me that most people wear horse blinders and refuse to see it.

C’s parents are lovely people. They also reminded me of my grandparents, that kind of down-home persona. And it made me terribly sad.

My grandparents have been gone for over 20 years. It was like time travel, looking back at what I used to have. And it sucked. My dad didn’t get to see my son grow up to the amazing man he is now. My grandparents didn’t get to see my son past the age of 1.

All the milestones and holidays were missed and gone.

I have told this to C. to not take her parents for granted. I don’t think she gets it though. She won’t until she loses one of them.

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PomeroySays
PomeroySays

Written by PomeroySays

New England born- now living in the Midwest. Blogger, author, influencer, and history addict. Say hi on KoFi- https://ko-fi.com/pomeroysays/

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