It is one of the most painful situations a parent can face — and one that is far more common than many people realize. Your children have stopped talking to you. Months have passed, perhaps years, without a phone call, without a visit, without so much as a text message acknowledging that you exist.
You raised them, sacrificed for them, loved them in ways that were not always perfect but were always real. And now, silence. The estrangement may have happened gradually, one missed holiday at a time, until you realized one day that the relationship had simply ceased to exist. Or it may have happened abruptly, with a falling-out that left you confused and grieving in a way that is hard to explain to people who have not experienced it themselves.
And now, as you sit with the paperwork of your estate plan in front of you, or simply with
