The Center for Intergenerational Communication is an outgrowth of the research conducted for the forms book Here to Hereafter: Everything My Family Needs to Know. This research turned up the fact that, with alarming frequency, families suffer significantly and sometimes fall apart altogether, upon the death of a key family member.

While grief over loss is normal and expected, we discovered that irreparable harm is done, not by death itself, but by the unspoken or implied. By the secrets and discoveries. By the unknown or forgotten.

Few people know when they are going to die and most assume it is not soon. They have time to “get ready”. At an intellectual level, we know this is not a good strategy. Who is ever “ready”?

The CFIC takes an intellectual approach to end-of-life subjects. There are plenty of resources for the emotional and strictly legal. The CFIC focuses on preservation and planning without being maudlin.

Death is a fact. So are families, relationships and personal preferences.

Anticipating death, whenever it comes, preserves families, relationships and preferences.

By acknowledging and anticipating death, families can be prepared. This requires communication between the generations. From locating the will to planning for the cat to the passwords on the computer. From the legal formality of a will to the casual indication of who can have the silver charm. Communicating these understandings in advance – or, at least recording them – preserves families through clarity.

As the CFIC was developed, a number of additional family-oriented activities and products have emerged. Professionally printing pictures that might have stayed on a hard drive. Writing a life story that might go untold. Commemorating an event – or a life – in an heirloom-quality keepsake. Restoring photographs that time might destroy.

And, importantly, CFIC has now undertaken to spread the word by live “evangelists” who go into their own communities delivering the message and offering families assistance. For some it is a part-time endeavor. For others, a career. For all, it is important.

Welcome to the Center for Intergenerational Communication. Visit our various pages. Read our articles. Try a few products. Join our teleseminars. Or, join our team.

Communication preserves families. It is our mission. Maybe yours?

 

Roger McManus

Executive Director