Family

The time we spend with our families, adopted or natural, are the most important times we will ever spend. I’ve recently been re-taught a lesson that I missed as a youth, the importance of family. When I was young my personal family life was one that was smited with downfall, miscommunication, fear, and broken hearts. Mine was a family that suffered the ills of the times, we were a dysfunctional unit that would have died if ever sent to battle.


My present family, that of my wife and her kin, have taught me the truth about closeness even in a day and age as we live in now. Today my wife and her sister spent the day with their stepfather in a hospital waiting room as their mother was going through a gall bladder procedure. I came into the hospital after work to find that the surgery had been postponed due to unforeseen problems to a later time in the day.

They had brought my mother in law to the hospital at the wee hours of the morning in hopes that she would be the first one in for surgery. That is not what happened; instead they waited for a good ten hours before the doctor could perform the act while her blood work stabilized. He finely did the surgery almost exactly twelve hours after she arrived in the morning. The sisters and her husband waited the whole day through for the work to be done.

I’m a person who listens and watches, what I heard while waiting my short time with them were stories of the past, family gossip that is meant to bond the family not harm, and words of warmth and affection. I saw familial love and heard the truth of closeness within everything said between them and I.

My wife’s mother in her illness brought the family unit together in a moment of truth. I am still humbled by this family that has become mine. They still teach me what the true meaning of a family is and I am proud to stand with such beautiful people.

I thank my wife, Romona for bringing me into this fold.

Peace and Balance,

John