Family is Forever

Yesterday I hosted a birthday party for three of my favorite people: my 3-year-old niece, my dad, and my dad's sister. The Aries have the rest of us outnumbered in my family. It started as an idea for a small get-together to acknowledge my dad and niece's back-to-back birthdays, and grew into a big family and friends-who-feel-like-family gathering. There were family friends that I hadn't seen in years who came, and my amazing, artistic aunt, who I hadn't seen in over five years, who is celebrating her birthday today (Happy birthday, Aunt Nancy!).

There's been plenty of family drama and the usual life trials in my family over the years, and many of us have drifted apart, but yesterday none of that showed. Hatchets were buried, bonds were renewed, and best of all, my girls got to be there to see it all. It's an amazing thing, to fill your house up with everyone you love and just bask in it for a whole day. We ate, we talked, the kids played, the musicians jammed, the kids danced, and the party lasted all day long. We're all talking about doing it again, soon.

Probably the only thing I still struggle with about separating from my husband is the guilt over not being able to keep my daughters' family intact. I know what it's like to have divorced parents, the schlepping back and forth with suitcases in hand and wanting desperately to wear the shirt you left at your dad's house and won't see again for at least a week. But watching my girls run circles around their extended family yesterday, giggling and twirling in their princess dresses, and having them ask over and over if we can do it all again next weekend, I'm letting some of the guilt go. They are loved, and they have an intact family, just as I do. My parents divorced over 30 years ago, and had plenty of years of not speaking kindly of one another, but yesterday I got to sit between them and listen as my father played his banjo and my mother sang along. That's the thing about family. They're forever, if you let them be.