My brother and I decided not to visit this year

I think I should put this here, since I wouldn’t be facing this but for the pandemic; however, it’s just a personal lament, and I considered putting it in MPSIMS. If a mod wants to move it, I won’t mind.

So, my brother and I have managed to see each other at least once a year, and sometimes twice, our whole adult lives (sometimes even more), in spite of the fact that right now, I live in Indianapolis, and he lives in LA. The closest we have lived as adults was one odd year when I was in a town about 90 minutes south of Indy, and he was in Chicago (5.5 hr. drive), but most of the time he lived in Chicago, I was in NYC. Visiting has always been challenging, but we’ve done it.

Especially, since my mother died, we have tried to stay in touch, and have seen each other twice a year.

Except this year.

I saw him from Dec. 28, 2019-Jan. 4, 2020, which was nice-- we went to Legoland, and had an early celebration of my birthday. And my family has never celebrated the secular new year-- albeit, DH has some friends he goes out with every year, so since we’ve had the boychik he stags it, and I stay with the kid. It’s a small party-- basically a reunion of his tabletop gaming group from college.

Anyway, we’ve done a few Thanksgivings with my brother-- in 2018, some of my cousins, and DH’s sister, who has a son the boychik’s age, and happens to live just south of LA, joined us, and we all also went to Disneyland. It was a blast.

When I left last Jan., we talked about going out again for Spring Break, 2020 (last March). Well, that died before it hit the womb, but then we said we’d definitely see each other over the new year again. By then, if the pandemic hadn’t passed, surely we’d have learned to cope with it to the point that we could visit.

Well, this is pretty much the last point at which I could get reasonably priced plane tickets in a normal year. I really don’t know what it’s like buying plane tickets right before travel as things are now. I don’t know if planes are flying part-full, and so tickets are cheap, or if half-full is the goal so nothing has really changed.

But there’s also a real risk that in December, California could have travel restrictions on people from Indiana flying in, anyway. And I don’t really relish wearing a mask non-stop for a week. Nor social distancing from my brother and his wife when we visit their house.

One of the things we do when I visit is that I teach him how to make one of the family recipes our mother, grandmother, or aunt taught me (it’s sort of a boy/girl thing, but mostly a “he moved out at 18, and was never around to learn, and I was”). It’s hard to do that while social distancing. I was going to teach him bagels, but bagels take time and a lot of steps. They’re not hard, but they’re involved.

So, we talked (well, texted, but that’s how we roll) yesterday, and decided to cancel plans for the new year. In two months, we’ll evaluate for a Spring Break or Passover visit (he an atheist who doesn’t celebrate the Jewish holidays much, and his wife isn’t Jewish, but he says they’ll do a seder if I cook).

I’m not especially hopeful, though.

This means I’ll go more than a calendar year without seeing him in person.

It’s difficult, because since both our parents are dead, we’re our closest relatives-- I mean, I have the boychik, but he hasn’t known me almost my whole life like my brother has. Of course, I have my aunt and uncle as well, and they live just a city away, but because they are in their late 70s, and my aunt’s health is vulnerable, I don’t visit them much either. It’s hard, because they are like parents to me. I really want to hug my aunt, and I haven’t for months.

Dealing with a lot of disappointment.

All in all, if this is the worst COVID-19 wreaks on my life, I’ve gotten off easy-- I realize that. I still felt like expressing myself somewhere. I’ve already whined to a couple of friends about it, and to DH, but I figured I’m not the only one with petty disappointments they might feel like airing.

Thanks for listening.

My family is close enough that we could visit no problem if they were living socially distanced lives. Except my brothers, their families, my parents, and my grandma are all mingling freely with each other and have been visiting openly with other friends as well as going to work all over the place. Basically living life as though nothing were different. “We’re not going to live in fear” and all that rot.
Family camping trips and birthday parties (including my grandma’s 90th) and lives have gone on without us and it’s very, very hard to deal with. And the worst part is knowing that all their reckless and selfish behavior is most likely going to result in absolutely no consequences, and they will feel vindicated in their decisions.

So, I feel your pain.

I’m in a similar place. I live near Chicago, and my youngest kid in Orange County. We’d usually done at least 2 here and there visits per year. Were fortunate to have flown out for a nice visit in Feb - right when the 1st COVID cases hit the US (curiously, in Chicago and LA IIRC.)

I get to see my oldest kid and grandkids, who live 10 min away. And my middle kid lives in Denver - we’ve driven out to see them, and they drove in to see us.

The plus side, as we see it, is we’ve spoken/Zoomed more w/ our youngest kid than ever before. So I think we are actually closer because of this. Also, she and her fiance are questioning why they are paying the premium to live in SoCal, far from all of their family, and are considering moving back to the Chicago area - or at least somewhere closer and cheaper. So it hasn’t been all bad.

Feel free to whine. Everyone has SOMETHING to complain about. But kudos to you for recognizing that - on balance - you’re doing all right.

I think rather a lot of us are in this sort of situation.

My brother and I usually see each other at a family Christmas gather, but my wife and I skipped last year - which means I haven’t seen him since December 2018. Was supposed to see him at a family gathering early this summer, but of course that got cancelled. If I’m lucky, I’ll see him in summer 2021, but that depends on the vaccine situation.

Likewise, I haven’t seen my dad since February; same deal, I’m hoping to see him in summer 2021, but this depends on a vaccine, and on him still being alive then.

Haven’t seen my wife’s family in Japan since last fall, probably won’t until next fall. So that’ll be two years.

Trying to count my blessings - my wife and I are continuing to work from home, no income problems, no food problems - but it’s tough to not see people you care about for so long, and in some cases wondering if you’ll ever see them again.

Yes, my husband’s mom is 88 and he was planning on seeing her this summer, but of course that didn’t happen. She’s in amazingly good health so we hope that holds on long enough that he can go when it’s safe to travel and see her again.

If you’re upset, you’re upset, and you have every right to be. My brother and I are still a little bitter that the town didn’t bother plowing the roads after an icy snow storm on Christmas day in 2017 so we hadn’t been able to see each other then.

Ok, I’ll add my story too: Saw my dad last November. I’m in Michigan, he’s in South Carolina. He’s mid-70s, has early- to-mid-stages of dementia. I’m not sure when I’m going to be able to see him in person again, so I’m just making sure to text semi-regularly, and my kids and I FaceTime him every Sunday afternoon at 4. It sucks because, not knowing when we’ll be able to go see him again, there’s a chance his dementia will have progressed pretty bad by then. In our Sunday conversations, he repeats the same stories and questions from week to week, and even in the same call. Every week he’s surprised to hear the virus is a problem up here in Michigan too.

It sucks.

Folks who can’t see your loved ones, your whining is not petty.

Mine is. I love to travel, and we had to cancel two flying vacations this last year - Hawaii and Washington. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to use the credits for other trips, especially Hawaii, so it might be money down the drain.

I’m going crazy with being cooped up, especially with the horrid smoke in the bay area. We decided to go on a driving vacation, staying inside our car and inside the vacation rental home for almost the whole time. I almost lost it today because the owners of the home emailed and cut a day out of our stay because they had failed to allot the necessary COVID-required cleaning time between us and the previous renters. It’s just a day, so no big, but at first I thought they were canceling out - phew.

Okay, done with my petty whine.

My family visiting has been bad this year. We canceled two family reunions and then my wife and I were the only ones to skip my cousin’s wedding. It was going to be on the beach and they had no interest in changing anything in July.

Then a month ago my grandpa was going to die any moment. We decided it was worth it so my sister and I drove a few hundred miles to see him. We got the call he had passed while we were on the way there. We still spent a few days there to see my dad.

Getting home was complicated. We have 7 people covering 3 generations here. I had just been on the road and spent a few days with other people. We decided that I would stay in a room by myself for a few days and either I tested negative or it had been long enough to decide I was clear. So I had to stay away from my wife and kids for two weeks. Not fun.

Is this over yet? When will we all be able to come to that conclusion?

My best bud from high school ('87 grads) got married last weekend, and I was to be the best man. I’m in Chicagoish, they’re in Conneticut. I didn’t go, and they understand. We’re all shooting for a 1st anniversery celebration next year, instead.
I’ve seen my stepdaughter twice since March of this year.
It’s a real kick in the teeth to know that we could beat the fuck out of this virus by practicing a few simple safety measures, but as a country of people, we refuse to. We just let it keep on keeping on, and then cry that we can’t get a haircut. Pathetic.