Family

Family is the most important thing in my life. It wouldn’t matter if I lived out of my vehicle; as long as I had my family and they were healthy then all would be well in the world. Though, because of my family, I know that it would never come to that point.


I’m just so thankful to have family in my life. I have my husband and my wonderful son…the two in my life that are the most dear to my heart and the most important to me, as I’m sure most mothers would say and feel. Then I have my husband’s abundant family, who are saving Dustin and me so much you wouldn’t believe. They are our life savers when it comes to Logan and his care during the day. (Did you know that it would cost over $200 a week for in home care and nearly $400 a week for center care for Logan?) We are fortunate enough to have Dustin’s family all around us. So his mother and father watch Logan during the day while we are at work and his cousin Mindy watches him until Deb gets off of work on the days that Dustin has to be in early. I really don’t know what I would do with out them!

My sister took my in when I was 15 years old, and by extension when she got married her husband’s family took me in too. I have felt so loved by this family. It has been this family that has taught me what it is to be a mother, to be a wife, and to be a woman in the world. I thank them so much for this…and I’m sure that Dustin and Logan do as well.

I put my family above anything else. Whether that would be the family that adopted me, the family that I married, the family that I grew up with (Carlynn, Joe, Tracy…) or the family that I now have to care for. You are my life, my heart and my soul.

Now, Dustin and I were watching an episode of House the other day. It was the episode where one child was in the hospital dying, and the other child had the means to save her, but it would most likely kill him before his time (he already had an illness that would significantly shorten his life). How do you choose? How do you deal with something like that? How can you even imagine something like that? Oh it would break my heart! They are both family and you are basically saying that one life is more important then the other. In the end they didn’t have to choose….but I won’t ruin the ending completely for you.

Where does this all come from? Well it comes from this past weekend. Boy did we have a full one! Saturday we had my nephew Sam’s 7th birthday party to attend! (Boy do I feel old). Then after that we went to the Booya at Auntie Doe and Uncle Mike’s (though it was Grandma’s Booya)(Dustin’s side of the family). It was so great to see every one together and then so see Logan with Mindy and the kids. I never really get to see them all together or hear the stories from one day to the next; I’m usually rushed so I don’t get to work late.

I love that the family gets together and sees each other. I come from a family that would never really visit each other even if they live in the same state, and I’ve married into one that will schedule gatherings around when people that live out of state are in it (not this event but at least Christmas and Thanksgiving and sometimes one more after that in the summer).

I think many people take for granted their family, they take for granted the fact that they live in the same state, that they are healthy, that they are near by, that they aren’t over seas in the war. I see it all around me, even in my own ‘biological’ family…but family isn’t just what you were born into, but it’s also those that you surround yourself with. I will keep on my Biological family to not take for granted these things, though I’m not sure I will ever get through to them, and I will enjoy the time that I have with all of my extended family and my own little family…until the day and past the day that Logan is pushing me away and not wanting to come home for the Holiday’s. I will still even then insist that he comes home, because he is family, and family belongs together.