The Dease Diaries: Time With Family

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. ~Albert Einstein

This past week we celebrated the life of my Grandmother. Family converged on the scene. We picked cousins up from airports and welcomed uncles and aunts in from long, cross-country drives.

The Klinger family is large. My Grandparents had 5 children, all of whom had children of their own; 14 between the 5 of them to be exact. Now that we are all grown, most of us with spouses and children of our own, there are 25 grandchildren (including spouses and fiancee's) and 21 great grandchildren. You get the picture, there's a lot of us. As can be expected, our family gatherings are made up of an abundance of personalities. When we are together we can't help but have a good time. Let's face it, any large group of people who have: all played starring roles in each other's childhood memories, kept secrets for each other, gotten into trouble together, had sleep overs together, taken trips together, babysat each other, celebrated weddings and babies together, mourned shared losses together...can't help but turn any event into a party. While not everyone was able to make the trek to Southern California we still managed to celebrate in true Klinger fashion.

At the heart of any memorial service is a great deal of mourning, but at my Grandma's service there was a great deal of happiness too. When I took a step back and looked around the room of friends and family who were present to pay their respects, I once again saw the legacy that was left behind. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to spend time with some of the cousins I idolized growing up and who have become my friends over the years (I am one of the youngest of the family and one of the few girls; I always wanted to do what the older kids were doing). I thanked them all as they assisted me in chasing down an insanely fast toddler (that would be Clare) and watched as our kids, the next generation, played. I saw a family that exists as a result of two people who chose to spend their lives with each other. Saying goodbye to my Grandma has been more difficult than I anticipated. She is one more link to my own father that I've lost. Still, I look at what she's left behind and am grateful for my family. We are quite an eclectic mix of personalities, but the older I get, the more I appreciate all the eccentricities and imperfections that make an ever growing family like ours tick.