Family Time

My trip to Utah was an amazing experience.  I went so that I could spend time with my Aunt Linda, who just lost her husband Jim after a 22 year battle with blood cancer.  I found out about the trip at Uncle Jim's service at the beginning of May and jumped at the time to spend time with an Aunt I have not had much time with.

She is the Aunt that I am most like and spending time with her made me realize that it is eerie how similar we are.  She has a love of dogs that rivals mine and she is the alpha of the dogs in her family, just like me.  She made a great choice in a husband and picked a great Jim, like me.  She is level headed --  extremely level headed.  Her discussions about the loss of her husband are so grounded.  It is remarkable at how she keeps everything in perspective.  It was especially heart warming when she bought us all lunch and said it was "on Jim" and we all gave a hearty cheer!  She is not super religious but has strong sense of values that she clearly used to raise her boys.  She also shared that she was most like her Aunt Mur in our family, which made a lot of sense to me.

I was also happy to hear the family stories she shared.  She confirmed that I went to Indian Lake when I was little, which was Aunt Mur's place.  And she talked about the strength of my grandmother which I loved hearing.  She also shared that my Great Grandfather was in fact from Russia (even though my DNA shows only a small part of Russian in me) and his wife, Hannah was from Sweden.   And the two of them both came to the US when they were 14 and met in Michigan when they could not speak each other's languages.

It was so important for me to spend this time with my Aunt Linda.  It really connected me to my heritage and led to a lot of self reflection.  I hope that I can live a life that is as grounded and meaningful as hers.