Extended Family

Family. While my immediate family is on the average size for most American homes (mom, dad, brother, sister and dog), my extended family is quite large. Both of my parents come from large Catholic families. My brother is the third of eight, and my mother is the third of seven. Most of my aunts and uncles are married with children, and both my grandmas and one grandpa is still alive. Add in various second cousins and great aunts and uncles and I probably have family in the majority of the states in the union.
I do have one cousin who lives in the metro area with me, she lives about 20 miles away from my apartment, in a suburb of PDX, and after living here for a good month and a half we finally connected over this past Labor Day weekend. It was fantastic. You have to realize that I moved from a town that I spent the majority of my life is the same town that my parents live in. And even when I moved thirty miles away, my family was less than an hour away. And now I live six hours and almost 400 miles away from my parents, which I realize isn’t too far, but far enough. And now I appreciate family more than I ever knew.


I think that’s all I have to say. I don’t really remember what my original point is.