What is Family?
Here's what I've learned...and what becomes more and more apparent as weeks go by.
Family is people who tug at your heart and touch your soul. Family is knowing you have people to count on - anytime of day. Family is smiles, laughter, and occasionally tears. Family is overhearing children's laughter and knowing their hearts are full. Family is watching others (dads especially) pick up your babies when they are crying. Family is pouring glasses of prosecco, mugs of coffee, cups of tea. Family is having each other's backs. Family is after school play time at the playground, carting your own kids and their friends to your house, feeding an overflowing table of people a simple dinner. Family is looking out for each other and spending entire weekends together. Family is "just dropping by" or a phone call to say "Are you home? Can I come over? I've got to get out of my house!" Family is cuddled up on the couch, holding hands, everyone grabbing a kid because the parents are outnumbered. Family is the excitement that seeing faces on an iPad musters up and watching it spill over as kids smile and peer into the screen with eyes lit up. Family is kisses and hugs and high fives. Family is sharing parts of your life and experiences that range from spectacular to mundane. Family is the ache in your heart when you long to be near and the gratitude that fills you when you stop and realize what you have. Again, family is people who tug at your heart and touch your soul.
Family. I have two...they are just separated by an ocean.
I have my Michigan family - who I treasure more now than ever before. The old saying is true - you don't know what you have until it's gone. They aren't gone, but they aren't near. This family has and always will be "my people". They know me and my kids sometimes better than I do. They are blood and non-blood alike. They are missed and loved more than words could ever describe.
But I also have my Italy family - a family I never in a million years dreamed I'd be a part of. This small group has carved a place for themselves in our hearts and has grown roots there. They aren't blood related, but feel like they could be. And they make thinking about saying goodbye incredibly hard.
You see, my Michigan family will always be there. When we said goodbye over a year ago, a piece of me reassured the rest of me that they weren't going anywhere. That they'd be there when we returned. This family - both blood and non-blood - is permanent. We've shaped this family into the family we want to have and it feels right.
But, my Italy family will one day be scattered all over the world. We will all physically leave each other - with only the memories of this family left in our hearts. The weekends together won't happen anymore. Picking up each other's babies will be a thing of the past. The glasses of prosecco, mugs of coffee, and cups of tea will be washed and put away. They won't sit around our dinner table in the middle of the week or meet at the cafe on the weekend. We won't cart their kids around with ours and we won't hear their laughter fill up the room. We will have to say goodbye - with the uncertainty of when our paths will cross again reducing us to tears. But, this family will still be family. My Italy family is filled with good people who have tugged at my heart and touched my soul. I am so lucky.
