Family

My mom gave birth to me just one month after her 17th birthday. And then she had my little brother just a few months before she turned 20.

When she was 24, she started having major problems with ovarian cysts and she had to have a hystorectomy. She told me that she always wanted to have more children, but her time had run out.

My mom raised my brother and I. We were a very close little family. We learned to rely upon each other and trust each other.

My mom died February 4, 2007. I feel like all I have left is my brother. Sure, I have my dad, a couple of grandpa's still around, aunts and uncles, a few cousins, blah, blah, blah . . . none of whom I'm very close to. I feel very alone sometimes.

I don't want my kids to be as lonely when it's time for Tony and I to leave this earth. I'm so grateful that they'll have each other (the 3 of them, thus far). And my kids have lots of cousins to love and support them as well.

My brother and his wife just had their first baby, a daughter, in April. I was talking to him the other day about what will happen to her if he and his wife were to pass away. I told him that I would OF COURSE take her (I'm totally in love with that little girl). He told me that he already planned on that, and that he'd be happy because she would be raised with all of her cousins around.

I'm grateful to have married into a large family. I absolutely love them. I'm grateful to have 4 sisters now - the brother's are OK, but I love my sisters! :) I learn wonderful things from them all the time, even tho 3 of them live in California. I call them to chat, for moral support and spend as much time as I can with them when we visit CA. I don't get to see them as much as I'd like to, but it's wonderful to feel that every one of them would be around for me if I truly needed them.

F-A-M-I-L-Y
. . . it's what it's all about.