Family

Family...I say that word with a much different meaning these days. 

Everything has been a complete whirlwind since Mom has passed.  From contacting my brothers and sisters about Mom, to meeting with the funeral home director to making sure our Father is going to be ok. 

...And giving us time to really grieve.

What a tribute to our Mother, the way that we are looking after her affairs, after our father.  There is no question about what our responsibility is, what we must do.  We must take care of our 87-year-old Father.  We must take up where she left off.  We have letters to write, meals to make and schedules to fill.  Mom instilled in us a sense of right and wrong, a sense of responsibility, of what we do to make a family a family.  She never told us what to do, we learned by watching her generous nature of how we should take care of each other, our neighbors, and our friends.

My brothers and sisters have been amazing.  We are all working together, becoming closer in our relationships with each other.  We all are taking this new meaning of what a family must do as a tribute to Mom but also as a tribute to ourselves; because we are able to put her work (nurturing us as we were growing up) into action.  I am proud of my brothers and sisters. I am proud to say that our Mother was our Mother...through all the good and bad...but always, always, being our rock, being the ship that weathered the storm and keep us dry. 

We are the luckiest family in the world..