Heart Full of Gratitude

To me,

my blog is more than ramblings.

It's my way of channeling

frustrations into humor,

hardships into happiness,

events into memories.

All while

cementing moments

and creating little biographies

 for future reflection.

It's my therapy.

It's free.

It heals.

Usually I take the carefree humorous approach.

Rarely I show my deeper intimate side.

I leave out the dark times.

I include the sunshine.

But today I wanted to share some of my inner heart.

With complete humility,

I wanted to say thank you to my family

for making this past weekend possible.

Our family has had more than it's share of tumultuous times.

We were split up at young ages

and siblings grew up separately.

We've had to fight to find each other.

To get to know each other.

We have different upbringings.

Different memories.

Different cities.

Different views.

But somehow there's still a tie that brings us together as siblings.

Somehow we all surfaced to the top

and found each other.

I know that there are many differences among us

and I wholeheartedly appreciate that

we could come together as one family

and set aside the differences for the unity of the group.

I know it's not the most comfortable situation.

But the purpose of the weekend successfully prevailed.

I truly am humbled

that I was able to spend a whole weekend

with both

Dad and Mom.

And 4 of 5 of my siblings.

It was a dream come true.

I have waited 20 years for that reunion.

While I was driving home from Vegas,

I had time to reflect on what had just occurred.

I wept.

Out of happiness.

To others,

it might be just another measly family reunion.

But to me,

it meant the world.

You see,

when your family is taken from you,

You abruptly realize the importance of it all.

Then when you grow up and live far away,

you cherish the rare times together.

You make every effort possible to rebuild those relationships

and create new memories.

Please don't take your families for granted.

It's never too late.

It might have taken 20 years,

but I knew it would happen.

I Love You

Dad

Mom

Nathan

Lyndsay

Luke

Brooke

Jordan