Ice Cream for Dinner

I try as much as possible to fill my empty time and space with normalcy. But honestly the last 2 weeks have stretched me and challenged me in ways I thought I wouldn't see again. But there was more that happened during that time too around me. Just one of those items I'll divulge here.

My uncle went on life support early last week. Everyone knew he wasn't going to make it off life support and it was just a matter of his remaining son being faced with the moment to let him go.

When I talked to my Dad about it, I was reminded that life is short. Life is full of regrets.

So I reached out to my cousin. We hadn't talked in years, many years. There was never a falling out, it's just that my Dad's side of the family never really connected or was tight, so each part of the family just sort of existed on separate paths. And so in death, our paths crossed again. LIfe is ironic like that...death can and does reunite people.

I called my cousin tonight, one of 4 I have left and just started to talk.

Let me digress, it will make sense.

When I eat something totally ridiculous for dinner, or breakfast, like an ice cream cake, I like to say "best part of being an adult is doing what you want when you want, this includes eating whatever I want for dinner", like the ice cream cake I had tonight actually.

That's the thing about being an adult. Your family ties are not defined by your parents family ties. You get to choose who you tie your world too. And nothing is set in stone, you can choose to reconnect many many years later. So it's through death that he and I cross paths again.

I'm going to do all I can to prevent the paths from separating again. Something tells me we are kindred spirits and the call really filled me up.

I need to continually be thankful and remind myself of the good in my life, no matter how much loss, sadness or disappointment there is. Thankfulness is a choice too.

He asked me how I was, was I married, did I have kids... you know, all the ways we define ourselves. My response? That's a story for another time, let's just focus on you for now. (Cause really, my story over the last 5-10 years would be quite a lot to take in on a first call.)