Time was when my Mom and I would go visit my Aunt Sammie, cousin Michael and Memaw every Sunday after church. We didn’t always enjoy or appreciate the visits, but it just seemed like the thing you do on Sundays: go to visit family, eat the lunch they’ve prepared for you, listen to them complain or just talk, then politely excuse yourself to go home and get out of your Sunday clothes.

Thirteen years later, Mom lives with my step-Gary in Texas, Sammie and Michael live in Carolina, and Memaw’s three years gone now. And I don’t even go to church anymore.
Even though I’m all connected with the world and with my faraway friends via the magic of the internet, I feel isolated from my family. I don’t understand how we were once so interdependent and loving and familiar, and now we’re so far apart, both geographically and emotionally. I just don’t get it.
