The Global Family

In order for this post to make sense, some back story is probably required.

The christmas of 2008, I had just moved to Kentucky. The cost of the move had completely drained my finances, and whatever was left had gone into the bucket called "Graduate School". So that meant I was spending christmas in Kentucky with Matt and his family instead of in Arizona.

It was a very special Christmas for this particular group. That winter was the first time all of Matt's siblings (6 kids including Matt) had all been in the same place with their Mom in 15 years. 3 boys, 3 girls, and the kids and spouses that came with. I was included as a daughter in this group. To this day it still blows me away how accepting everyone was.

Christy, Matt's oldest sister, is one half of a 2 singer irish folk traveling duo called Four Shillings Short (www.art.net/4ss) . During the christmas visit, they did a house concert at Rebeccas house, in addition to a full concert fundraiser in Louisville. In the house concert, they played an old traditional ballad called Health to the Company:

words and music Traditional

Kind friends and companions, come join me in rhyme

Come lift up your voices in chorus with mine

Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain

For we may and might never all meet here again

Here's a health to the company and one to my lass

Let us drink and be merry all out of one glass

Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain.

For we may and might never all meet here again

Here's a health to the dear lass that I love so well

Her style and her beauty, sure none can excel

There's a smile upon her countenance as she sits on my knee

Sure there's no one in in this wide world as happy as we Our ship lies at harbor, she's ready to dock

I hope she's safe landed without any shock I

f ever we should meet again by land or by sea

I will always remember your kindness to me

Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain For we may and might never all meet here again

Susannah is Matt's other sister who sings Jazz (Music runs in this family I tell ya!) and she got up to sing with Christy and Aodh for this song. When they got the to words I've bolded in the songs, there was a real moment. That moment where you don't want to blink because it will become a moment of the past. A moment where you realize all the petty things in the world are just that... petty. And the real reason for being here was all standing in the room with you.

Why does this come up in my head now, over 2 and a half years later? I remember thinking at the time "how the HECK does a family go 15 years without being together?" I grew up in Arizona where family surrounded you. We got together at least every other month, and coming from a big family there was always a birthday or a party or a family dinner going on.

My own family, it turns out.... now I unfortunately have my own experience to share. The last time we were all together in one place was our family cruise to Mexico over Christmas-New Year 2008. Since then our family has grown with my nephew Tyler!

I will be going to Seattle in just under a month to spend some quality family time, even if it is a short visit. And it won't be the same because Elizabeth (wow.. I think that is the first time I have ever fully typed that out. She'll always be Beth in my head) is still in Africa. Her adventure is indefinite at this point.

I have finally laid to rest a die hard habit. Pack my days with MY schedule, MY agenda, so that I don't get "smothered" by my family. It is a hard feeling of resentment to shake. But I did it. I had originally planned to make a getaway trip to Vancouver, on Mother's day, no less. Yes I know. I'm a bad daughter for even considering it. Being gone and on my own has honed a much deeper appreciation for the people that are tied to us through no choice of our own, or so we say. Yet we do actually have a choice. We have a choice to either embrace that relationship and nurture it, or let it stagnate and have it mean nothing.

Especially as I am considering the prospect and excitment behind having my own family someday, it really makes me evaluate my connections to the one I already. So I called my parents on Sunday and told them I was cancelling my trip. I knew my parents would never have told me I couldn't go mostly because I would have gone anway.

But when I vocalized I wanted to stay to spend *QUALITY* time with them, you could hear it in my mom's voice as she said that was the best Mother's day gift she could ask for. My parents both know that Vancouver ranks as one of the top 3 favorite places in the world, and I was sacrificing a visit that meant a lot to me. My dad was just dad, giving me a hard time about not wanting to have to be a backseat passenger all the time.

It took a day to be joyous about the decision, I will be honest. It was that shifting and laying down new neural response patterns. Of going beyond what I know I should do to embracing it as what I truly want to do instead. And now I absolutely cannot wait to spend 5 minutes apiece hugging each one of them.

Oh. And apparently Dad is bringing JC the Donkey to Seattle. God I love my family. The picture here is from my dad telling me that JC had a hankering for some sour cream. Didn't my parents teach me not to play with my food?