Walking into the mortuary for my godfather’s funeral, the place is filling quickly. My mom is number 10 of 12 kids so I have cousins everywhere in this room. I have cousin’s spouses everywhere and their grown children and their spouses. I have aunts and uncles and their cousins and so forth. It’s great to have such a great family.

We love each other and come together for times like this. There was a time when we were all small children and family get-togethers were quite common. The more we grew and moved and spread out the less frequent they become. We all hug, we all cry, we all laugh together.

My cousin Celia explains to my husband, “you have to understand, we were like this growing up”, as she sticks her fingers together, “and no matter how long it is between our visits we have always been like this”. It’s true. We were raised like one big family. It was not a big deal to be scolded or loved by any of my mom’s siblings. As Anthony, my son, walks into the room, I see the pattern repeating, I see Celia’s eyes light up as if she’s seeing her son, and she runs and hugs him, “You look good! I’m glad you’re here. Introduce me to your girlfriend, is she the ONE?” Anthony is enveloped in love as everyone comes to greet him and love on him and Frances.

My cousin Danny, who is a year older than I am, explains that he is my favorite cousin to which Celia says matter-of-factly, “No you aren’t our favorite”, and I reply “in fact, you were more like the cousin we never wanted because you were a boy and we all know that you have cooties”. It was an on-going argument of those of us in that age range because we were made to play together as children and the boys were always such a pain except when we needed them to build something for us.

Why is it that we only get together for major events? I have such a great family yet we are so busy that we rarely take the time out of our lives to call each other. Yet in happy times and times of deep sadness family is so important. I pray you take a few minutes today to call one of your loved ones just because!