Reuniting La Familia

The Pillars of a family help maintain the foundation others built before them, proudly holding high the glorious weight of unity, respect, and love. As they fall weak with age, who dares take their place? Or are we going to allow the true meaning of family to crumble and fade into history and memory?

I have so many beautiful memories from my youth, involving my large extended family made of many Aunts and Uncles (even if they were just cousins or family friends), lots and lots of cousins, and absolutely wonderful and inspirational parents and grandparents. They did a wonderful job of putting aside differences that could permanently divide a family and they tried to lead by example, unifying all different branches of my family as if one complete immediate tight family. Might not have been gracefully or tactfully done, but so what? That is what I love most.

Now a new tide is coming to shore, and its the next generation's turn. There are those who feel they have been bred for this responsibility but are not selfless, there are those who are slowly moving out of the way, and there are those who cannot accept that this inevitable change is coming. So who, I ask, was meant to take this over? All of us. We grow up thinking the new set of family members are different, but in essence they are not. We have the same issues spread out at the end of the day its similar, may not just be obvious because the people filling the same roles were not who we expected or assumed would

We have grown. All of the kids and their kids are adults and the new generation is being born as I write. Sure, we have lost many great family members, and there are more to leave us, but what matters most is cherishing the one thing that many people don't have the privilege of appreciating, having a large loving family. Sure there are moments of selfishness, bitterness, anger, deceit, envy, gossip, spite, and irresponsibility. Time for us to enjoy each other, help each other, and love each other, even if some of us make it hard to do. Everyone knows taking this responsibility is hard to do, but it's been done before .

"I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself." -Walter Andersen

Para Uncle Johnny Torres and all those we've lost along the way