Family

Family means a lot to me. It always has. Family always comes first and there is nothing I won’t do when it comes to my family. I am not talking of just immediate family but my ENTIRE family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, I cling to them all. My favorite thing to do is get together with them. I don’t know if this is normal for people to feel this way about their families or because of how they came to be my family.

I was adopted as a baby. My entire life (until the birth of my brother’s latest baby at age 34 - she is the one over there on the right in the yellow dress) I was the only blonde blue-eyed person in my family. Growing up I did not fit in with the rest of my family – in the looks department anyways. My family is Mexican and I was raised that way.

My brother was also adopted but he being Mexican, his looks fit right in. (that is him over there on the left) Because of our different looks I once was threatened in high school by some girls while eating lunch with my brother. The look on their faces when my brother told them I was his sister was priceless!

My parents always told me and my brother that we were adopted. I have even met my birth family but that is another story for another time. I joke all the time to my mom that there was no way that they could not have kept my adoption a secret as I don’t match anyone else in the family. We always get a chuckle when I am introduced to new people and they say they can see the family resemblance. I wonder just what they are looking at when they say that. (That is her in the picture below with her brothers and sisters wearing the black top).

I remember how close my extended family was growing up. My house was the house where all holidays were celebrated (still is). We had the largest house and the only pool. Every weekend all my cousins (both sides) would come to swim. Whenever we get together it is not just one side of the family but both sides. It makes for a very large group. The lowest number we have had over at one time was about 20 people. The last time we were all together was for my Grandmother’s (dad’s mom) funeral this past April. When my Grandmother died she had 4 kids living (one deceased), 18 grandkids living (one deceased), 21+ great-grandkids (there are 4 cousins in TX that I don’t really know so there may be more), and 3 great-great grandkids (and this is just on my Dad’s side of the family).

As the years pass and we get older everything changes (as it should). We don’t gather as much and since we have grown so much we have split into groups. Some of my Aunts/Uncles have their own holiday celebrations with their own kids and grandkids as their families have grown so much.

I have always dreamed of living in different areas but because of all my family living here – I will never move. I don’t like change. We have been so lucky to have some-what healthy lives. That is why finding out that one uncle has liver cancer and needs a transplant and that one aunt has colon cancer and does not seem to be doing well is very hard for me. I cannot picture my life without them in it.

I feel sorry for DH as he only had his mom, step-dad and brother growing up. He is still not comfortable in large family groups. Many times I have found myself going to get-togethers without him. That way I can stay as long as I like. That is just the way I like it. :-)