Has anyone noticed siblings growing more distant and/or cutting ties after their last parent dies?

[woodsprite]

1. Yes, it happens.

My brother and I were very close to Mom, less so when I got married, but we still got together pretty much weekly. Mom's been gone 13 yrs now, and even though we live less than 10 miles away from each other, we talk on the phone about every 4 wks and see each other about every 3-4 months or so.

The same thing has happened with my in-laws family, even though they just moved down to Florida. They were kind of the 'glue' that held everyone together. We got together for a weekly family dinner for the first 26 years. At the beginning (when they first moved down), we all were looking for a break (especially from the tension that would sometimes arise or from my SIL bringing her kids that were sick and spreading germs to everyone) from having a 17-21 person pot luck on a weekly basis. But we've gotten out of the habit now and do one only on holidays. Also, it fell on me to keep everyone together and I'm just the daughter-in-law. We did all get together and went down to FL for my FILs 80th birthday this summer. For 10 nights we met at Mom/Dads for dinner and did the beaches together. We felt we needed a vacation after that. My SILs family is very different from mine and the kids don't have much in common. I don't know if it will be any less once Mom and Dad are gone, but I'm pretty sure it won't be much more.

Maybe if you just called your sister and kept it very casual and short, she'd know the door was always open to contact you.