Family Week

In late September, my maternal grandmother moved from her house to a retirement home closer to us. She decided to sell her house and my parents, uncles, aunts, and a few cousins have been working to get the property empty and ready for showing.

On Thanksgiving, we got together with mom's side of the family at grandma's new place. Part of the conversation was about working on the house and dividing up items to whoever wanted them. Some of my cousins put their names on various items, but also their children's names for some of the toys.

Dad looked at a few things that he said looked like unique antiques. However, since he wouldn't have grandchildren to pass them down to, he didn't feel right taking them. I've heard this comment more than once in the past few weeks.

Yesterday, my dad's side got together for our annual combined Thanksgiving and Christmas celebration, or thankmas as we say. I like seeing my family again, but part of the discussion from cousins of my age are about their kids and what their family has been doing.

It should be apparent from this blog that I love kids and enjoy working with them. In high school, I had the typical dream of wanting to get married and have children of my own. However, that is extremely rare when living the quad life and I have not escaped the trend.

I'm thankful for all the kids God has allowed me to speak to at schools and church, even though it's only about 30 minutes at a time. I had always prayed to have my own to teach, but that doesn't appear to be likely.

As we continue in this season of thanks and celebration, we need to remember it is not always a time of joy for everyone. I've learned to be thankful for the abundance of blessings God has given me and to not want more. Hopefully in 2019 I can continue to work with schools and get to be a parental influence if just for a short time.