Wednesday, December 23, 2020
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I distinctly remember the first time I realized how blessed I was to be born into the family that Grandma raised.
I was in high school, walking between classes, and I overheard someone say they had just met one of their cousins.
To me, that was incomprehensible. "Met" a cousin? I knew all my cousins from birth!
I've come to appreciate just how remarkable the close-knit nature of our family is, and how much of that comes from Grandma and Grandpa (despite them being the first to leave us behind by moving to Florida!).
For my grandparents, for my aunts and uncles and parents and cousins, family has been much more than an accidental relationship. When I was very young, everyone would get together frequently to play cards; as I grew older, that became less and less practical (thanks to all of my annoying cousins who were born and started distracting their parents) but it was still very important for us to gather as often as we could.
And play cards, mainly. Of all the gifts Grandma bequeathed to us, a love and knowledge of card games was among the most important, because we could laugh and get frustrated and yet laugh some more as we bonded over the vagaries of good fortune and the common desire to destroy our opponents (in a loving way) (or so I like to tell myself).
My memory is sadly not good enough to remember any one particular moment in time that Grandma showed me how much she loved me (although apparently a significant portion of her last week in this world was spent eagerly waiting her opportunity to call me for my birthday); rather, I remember 50 years(!) of love. Tough love occasionally, but always love.
And games.
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