I am going to a birthday party for my aunt today.  She is one hundred years old.  Pat is going to drive me.  Becky is keeping Squig.  I will see all my cousins and their children.  Occasions like this don't happen very often.

You have to make an effort to connect with your family members that live a long way away.  I try to get my children and grandchildren together for one day each year.  Just so that they know who they belong to.  They're mine.  When I am gone, they will all go their separate ways.  That's how these things work.  But while I am still here, they are "My" family.  When I am gone, they will be "Their" families.

The family I am having the hardest time leaving is my church family.  These are the people that helped me raise my children.  They were there for me when I was sick.   They brought food,  they mowed the lawn, they took care of a million little problems that I couldn't take care of.  I helped them raise their children as well.  I am not going to have that kind of family when I move.  It makes me really sad.

We say we will write.  But we don't.  We say we will get together.  But we don't.  Every time Ken and I moved, we left dear friends that we never saw again.  You keep in touch for awhile but your lives get busy and you can't keep up.  You drift apart not because you don't care, but because you lose track of the details of their lives.  There is a song that we sing: "When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be..."  I hope all my friends are there.  I want to catch up on things.  It is going to take at least one eternity.