Family Connections

I think there is no denying that family relationships can range all the way from super close all the way to strained or non-existent, with all kinds of complicated relationships in between.  Over the last 8 1/2 years I've had to readjust my expectations of family simply because I've lost both parents as well as two of my brothers.  I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, this is just my reality.  I am blessed with a wonderful husband of 28 years and 3 children who make me - well, they make me happy!  (Most days, ha ha ha....we are all human, after all)  I was just thinking the other day, now that the holidays are over and we're all pretty much back to real life  - it hit me that this was the first year I didn't have a kind of ache in my heart from thinking about and missing my parents, especially at Christmas.  I mean I thought about them, absolutely, but it was pain free reminiscing.  Finally!  I don't know what next year will hold because the one thing I've learned is that grieving is a really really crazy process, but I'm hoping it will get easier.  It was just a couple of years ago that a line in a novel I was reading - "A Fatal Grace" by Louise Penny- the setting was a large party on Christmas Eve and the author wrote this about one of the characters who'd lost both her husband and son, "At Christmas homes are full of the people there and the people not there" - I read that line and tears welled up in my eyes and it practically physically hurt because it was EXACTLY how I felt at that time.  They say time heals, and it appears to be at least somewhat true.  So here's to all the learning - and healing - we'll do in 2012.  Cheers!