Tuesday, November 8, 2011

"I didn't come all this way not to have some family bonding, dammit."

Saturday night, my brother, Daniel, called the house to get information on the where and whens of this event. He made some remark about not showing up for the event and my sister, Sharyn, made the above comment. That became the running joke.

We're not the closest of families. Each one of us lives our lives pretty much out of the orbit of the other siblings. There's nothing necessarily good, bad or indifferent about that, it's just the way we've evolved. The boys live closest to mom while Sharyn and I live farther away. Life took us to Michigan and Illinois, respectively. We've had our periods of silence when someone's life seemed to be heading in a not very positive direction. We don't really keep in touch, but I like to think, as we've grown older, the value in staying somewhat connected has dawned on us. We'll never be calling each other monthly, let alone daily as some siblings do, but we won't snap at each other quite so much as we have in the past.

So, it is a pretty big deal when we can all get together.
We know that it made both mom and Dale extremely happy to have all of us there. For my part, although mom said I could be excused due to the need to go up and down stairs around her house, there was never a doubt that I wouldn't be there.

Dan drove out to the farm early so we could all go together to the church hall, mainly because we weren't exactly sure where it was in town. I knew it was off the main drag and all we had to do was look for a lot of cars. The first thing he did when he walked into the house was grab me, hug me and say, "I'm here for my bonding!" Thanks to Sharyn and her "family bonding" comment, we would, occasionally, stop and say, "family bonding moment" and hug some unprepared sibling, niece or nephew. It's the kind of thing that can be perpetuated for a long, long time, every time we get together. "Ooooh! Family bonding moment!" Grab. Hug.

As Dan was preparing to head home, we had to capture the "bonding moment". And a new tradition is born.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

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