Standing on my Soap Box

Wow here we are, finishing the second full week of January. Today I think I will be talking about… family. I know that I have told you a little about mine, and some of our traditions, etc. But I think today I will encourage you about getting along!

I am an only child. I didn’t start out that way, but that changed when I was 13 years old. It was 9:30ish in the evening and our phone range. It was June 24th, I will not tell you how long ago or what year it was cause then you will be able to figure out how old I am, and we women don’t want you to know that! (Yeah right, it was 1981 and I will be 44 this year.) My brother was 8 years older than I was, so he would have been 20. ANYWAYS, back to the 9:30 phone call.

It was my Uncle, and he called to tell my mom that my brother had been in an accident, and Colin (pronounced like the body part, not the English version) had been killed. He had been driving in Alberta on his way back to Manitoba. WOW what a phone call, what a drastic change in our family.

I remember so very well the grave side service. My cousins were standing with their siblings being comforted, and the sibling I should have been standing beside was the one being buried. (Even as I type this 30+ years later, I am having a hard time).

Now we will go forward a few years to today…

I watch families and the way that they get along. I hear of siblings not talking to each another because of a stupid word that was said or an attitude that is not shared, and my first response is “Get over it!”

You have no idea what it’s like to want to talk to someone, or share an inside joke with them, and not be able to. My brother wasn’t there when I got married. I didn’t get to see his face when I would have told him he was going to be an uncle. I have to tell my children what their uncle was like, they cannot experience him. My Uncle Johnny passed away before I was born, and my mom and her siblings can tell me what he was like, but I haven’t experienced it firsthand, much like my kids.

Figure out your differences. You may not agree on the same things, or anything for that matter, but they are family, and aside from God, that’s all you have that’s sure. Friends come and go, but your family is yours forever.

Ok off my soap box, it’s time for a Resolution update:

How many of you are joining me in this resolution? I had a REALLY slow start to this, so technically I am not as far as I should be. I have however, completed 4 “dates” with my treadmill. I have been doing the walk/run program, and have done run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes each time, and my last session was 35 minutes long. I do not run fast, some may even think that I waddle.

Next week I will be changing it up a little and running 1 minute and walking 1 minute. I have scouted out a 5K race series that I will be signing up for soon that takes place in April.

How are you doing?