Love and Family

So break is totally going NOT according to plan. Not enough reading, not enough writing, and a whole lot of nothing. I told myself I was going to try to write something here every day and its been ten days since my last post. My last post was me telling myself that I'm going to get something done and here I am in fact, NOT DOING IT. But I digress, while break may have been completely unproductive this far and I'm going back to Philly this weekend, it isn't to say that I've spent break thus far without learning anything.

Small update, I'm finally back on the east coast after having been in Chicago for a week with a small visit to Wisconsin somewhere in there. Heading to North Jersey to see family for what appears to be a boring New Years yet again :(. And then it's off to Connecticut to see more family then I'm getting dropped off in Philly on Sunday on my parents' way home to Maryland.

So back to the core of this post... I REALLY love my family! And I do not mean just my parents and sister but my extended family as well. My parents told me an amazing story about my grandparents and to be honest I could not help but break down a little bit over it. For the early part of my life, my mom's parents raised me so my parents could work. Not only did they help raise my sister and me but also my two cousins because our moms worked together. They definitely sacrificed a lot of time and energy to make things work so our parents could provide for us. The day of my eighth grade graduation, my grandma passed away and so my grandpa was on his own. Over time his health has consistently grown worse. Multiple strokes have rendered him unable to move most of his body and his memory is not always there.

So my mom was telling me how hard my grandparents worked to provide for their children ( my mom/aunts/uncle). My grandparents always encouraged the attitude of give everything for your future, and in this case when they were talking, they were talking about their kids, and respectively when telling this to their kids, they meant me and my cousins. I have always considered myself blessed with a lot of great things in my life but I always assumed that aside from God they all came from my parents. When my grandma passed away, she passed out her inheritance to her children. She had one desire for the inheritance though, and that it would go towards the grandchildren. All the hard work my grandparents put forth to make ends meet was actually in order to see their grandchildren do well. Basically, my grandparents are paying for a part of my college tuition and expenses.

That completely humbled me. Sometimes it is sooooo easy to get wrapped up in our own work that we forget what are working for. My grandparents obviously knew what they were working towards, and to see my grandpa immobile in a nursing home eating through a tube, and barely coherent because he is heavily sedated just broke me. The guy that I was looking at, who because of so many strokes, hardly remembers me, yet gave me so many things, opportunities, and blessings.

That brings me more towards the present. My cousins and I are so blessed to have our grandparents who did so much for our parents and us. In this spirit of the Christmas that just passed, it has definitely reminded, and brought us closer together. I love my family <3.

Cousins <3