Family is important to all of us, but it’s not always our priority as the vagaries of life are upon us continuously. As we conduct our lives, we are concerned about careers, our home, immediate family, and the many challenges of our daily sitcom.

Lucky for me, Marjorie took on many of the responsibilities of maintaining contact with both sides of our family. Mine was no challenge. It mostly consisted of my cousin, Nancy, during our 61 years together.

Marjorie, conversely, has dozens of cousins. (Hey, that rhymes. Cool.)

Our family has suffered two tremendous gut punches with the death of Harry and Marjorie’s passing late last year. And a couple years earlier, Harry’s boys lost their mother, Candy. That’s a lot of loss for one family.

Harry and Candy raised four fine boys. They have endured more than their share.

Harry’s passing, while heartbreaking, also became the vehicle that brought us back together. Not the way you’d choose to do it.

Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect (golly what an important word that is) with some of them I hadn’t seen very often for several years. I feel blessed to have the chance, though maybe a little late.

I was blessed with an invitation and the opportunity to spend time with Chris and Terri at Water’s Edge. Chris is Harry and Candy’s eldest. Thank you for reaching out and making that happen.

I have been additionally blessed that Craig, the youngest of the four, honored me by driving all the way from Florida to spend a couple days with this old man. He heads back today. I’m sincerely hoping we can stay close with additional visits and other communication in our time ahead. Hope I didn’t bore him with my life stories. I know him much better now, and because I run my mouth a lot (I hear ya, Marjorie), he knows more about me too.

Seems to me we may all be trying to fill a little void. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Got a lot more outreach to do.

Get on with it, Don.

Enuf for now.