Family

The picture in my last post is of me and my family. We are a unique family in many aspects. The woman on the right of the picture is my wife of 17 years. That's me in the hat, Bumble if you will. The woman on my left is our daughter N, she is older than myself, and she is my best friend. The young guy on the left is our son J he passed away 2 years ago the 13th of this month. This picture portrays a family that was pretty happy. We had all just moved in together again to make going to school and taking care of J easier. I'll fill in the gaps as they come along. The point I want to make today is my family, I believe, is the best family I could have ever hoped for. You see we are all best friends and love each other immensely. I have seen many families who do not get along or do not speak etc. etc. But my family we are so happy when we are near each other. There are few of us but we love each other so much it works. As I stated J is no longer with us and the process of losing him was a long and arduous journey. When I think about that time it is a blur for me. There was nothing I could do for my family so I just basically existed in an alternate life while we all went through this tragedy. I wasn't a friend to anybody during this time. If it weren't for those outside of our family pressuring me to not sit around and sulk daily I don't know if I would be here writing this. I am very happy to say that the 3 of us left in the family have reconnected. I didn't know if it was going to happen but it did. We just spent 2 months together over the holidays while N had surgery and recovered. I am happy to see N return to somewhat normal everyone else in the family worried she was falling into a depression that none of us could do anything about. N pulled out and then got married to R so we have a new member of the family whom we are trying to assimilate into our lives. It must be hard for him to try to fit in with a family that has experienced so much and are so close. We welcome him with open arms. Today N and R live many, many miles away (the picture in my header is from where they are) and we fear we will not ever live close to each other again. Such is life. What I still regret is during that time we were all living together we did not (me included) appreciate one another and enjoy our lives together. Now of all times when we are all so far apart, I realize how much we mean to one another and the opportunity we missed. Its been 2 years and I am finally feeling the loss of J. I hadn't until now taken the time to miss him or internalize the reality of his being gone. My wife has never recovered and I am sad to say I fear she will never be the same. (I miss her) Worrying about her and what she has experienced has kept me from dealing with my feelings. I guess I also fear that I may irrevocably change myself. N being one of my best friends also changed and has been different for a long time now and I want to ask her how she is but I think if she opened up that she wouldn't stop crying. Its 2008 and there is one thing certain, nothing is certain, except I love my family S, N, and R.



the newest members of our family