Family Comes First

It's a simple phrase, we hear it a lot, but every once in a while the full meaning becomes abundantly clear to me.

I have a big family- I'm the youngest of six. We all live far enough away from each other that we don't see one another that often, and we're all so busy with our own families that sometimes its hard to make time to see each other for months at a time.

This week, I've been busy getting my family ready for our summer vacation. We'll be gone from Sunday to Sunday. And this is only our second vacation as a family, and the amount of work it takes to get all of us ready shocks me! On Thursday, I had just sat down after doing laundry, cleaning, packing, and racing from store to store for some last minute things when my sister called to tell me that my brother's car had broken down in western Maryland (very close to D.C.) and he couldn't get in touch with his fiance or our parents.

So at 8 PM, I got in my car, drove to my sister's house in Newark, DE and the two of us, along with my 13-year-old niece who is amazing, headed to Germantown, MD. My mom called us shortly after we got on the highway and said how proud of us she was. It struck me as funny because to me, going to get Tim wasn't a question. My brother needed help. I'm sure just one of his sisters could have gone to get him, but it was a long drive (as it was we didn't get back to Maribeth's house until 1:30 AM) and neither one of us wanted the other to have to do that by herself.

After we got to Tim, loaded his things into our car, and made sure everything was ready for the tow truck and mechanic, we relaxed. We all slipped right back into our normal routine together- lots of talking, lots of joking, lots of laughing. As unexpected as it was, there was no place I would have rather been at that point than right there, in that car, with my family.

As we were all heading to bed, my sister and I were talking. We wondered aloud what people without siblings do when things like this happen. Obviously we both realize that only children have their own networks- friends, extended family. But to us, life without our brothers and sisters is impossible to imagine. And despite how crazy we can all make each other from time to time, we all feel so lucky to have this family.