About a month ago, maybe a little more, my little sister had what the doctors called a mini stroke.
She is only 28.
This upset me more than you may guess.
I started looking harder for family members.
I called mom and dad more than I had in months or longer.
It scared the shit out of me.
I have always lived my life in the moment. If you remember previous posts, you know why I didn't dwell on the past.
This is also the reason I never looked to the future. Having your self esteem beaten to a pulp will do that to you.
Anyway...
My family has always meant the world to me and many of them may not know it.
I want them to know it now.
For years I have always wondered if anyone missed me after we moved to Texas.
If you have known me for a long time and you know my family, then you know that my family is enormous on both my mom and my dads side.
We used to get together a lot when I was a kid and have holiday parties. We would spend the night at each others houses, mostly me at theirs from what I remember.
I remember always having fun and being happy.
:)
I started last Sunday trying to find some cousins.
[Remember I have not seen most of them in over 20+ years.]
I saw some FB pages and I wasn't sure. Then I finally just typed in the B last name and paged through all of them.
600+ on FB
And there he was! In a profile pic of a woman who's last name started with B. He looked exactly like my Uncles, I sent a message taking a chance and introducing myself.
Then I found another cousin... and another!
The B family was coming out of the woodwork!
I left messages for all of them and went to bed.
The next morning as is my ritual before work I made a cup of coffee, took the dog out, grabbed the laptop and pulled up FB.
1 New Message!
It was from the woman's FB account whom I said had a man in the pic with her who looked like family. I opened it and it was from not her but my cousin K.
Excitement filled me as I read that indeed we are related and he gave me his phone numbers. He said he hoped to hear from me soon.
Quickly I messaged him back and provided my number as well.
I went on to work in a much better mood than I have been in awhile.
When I came home from work there was another message from another cousin! And yes she had missed me too and wondered how me and my brothers and sister were doing.
I went to the search area and popped in the C family name and found more cousins that night. As the week went on I heard from more and more cousins that I had not talked to in forever!
Thursday afternoon my phone rang and it was my cousin K, we talked for almost an hour. It was a pleasure catching up on everyone and everything going on in our large B family.
[Nearly an hour on the phone? Surprising because I do not like talking on the phone. A hazard of working in a call center.]
The moral of this story is:
- Don't ever think you have not put a mark on someones memory.
In one way or another every person you have met will remember you.
- Family is number one and the most important part of who we are, don't ever let them go.
and it's true...
"There's no place like home."
