Family

Well I just got back yesterday from a weekend with my family as we had my Grandmother's funeral and celebrated her life. I really did enjoy seeing everyone, but it is just such a large number of people that my brain is still trying to sort and file it all away. My Grandmother had ten children, five boys and five girls. My mother was the fourth child and second daughter. I am the second grandchild and first granddaughter. Being one of the oldest grandchildren gives me the advantage of being able to remember when most of them were born and watching them grow into wonderful adults. That was what impressed me the most was seeing them, meeting their spouses, hearing about what they are doing, meeting who they are dating, meeting their children, hearing their passions and being reminded of what makes each of them so individual.
Getting together with family reminds me of who I am, and what parts of me come from them. Some parts I love, some parts I don't understand, some parts I wish I was more like, some parts I don't want to copy, and some parts I would like to change. Family is fun and frustrating. I have my own immediate family, my husband and my three children. I have my husband's family and then my own extended family. I am married into a family with culture and traditions which are foreign me and at times I find my own biological family weird. We fight, love, terrorize, joke, play, tease, and much more... We learn about ourselves and others as we interact, through life together, it seems to me that it is a pulling together and apart, sometimes it seems we fit and other times we don't. We are all alike and yet different. A beautiful mosaic that is always changing. And now with the death of our Grandmother we will still change again.