Family tree

Spending the holidays with the family. When I was a kid, we never went anywhere for Christmas b/c my father refused to go to my grandparents and my grandparents refused to leave Cleveland. So we made our own traditions here as a family. Wake up, open stockings, pancakes with John, now Grand-John, open presents. Relax. Dinner. Dessert with neighbors. Christmas eve was usually at the B's. We got together with the same people year after year after year. Then, when Dad died, we started doing everything in Cleveland.

Cleveland. Where every bed is a twin and the heat does not work on the second floor of the house. Where we open presents AFTER dinner. But at the same time, Cleveland is where Mimi and Bapa are. Where family comes together. No friends, just family. Where the meal is usually out of a Charles Dickens' novel and the presents look like the first floor of FAO Schwartz all wrapped up in bows and sparkly paper.

So this year we did Christmas in Jersey. Not knowing when or where we were moving. Everything up in the air. But on New Year's Day, we traveled to Cleveland to see Mimi and it could not have been more enjoyable. No stress about the holidays and no scrutinizing from other family members about what you have under the tree. No griping about food you don't like or feeling like you cannot relax b/c it is time to clean up. Just spending time with the fam.

Made me think about how my Grandmother fell in love with my Grandfather. Over letters. How he went off to the war. He wrote to her. She didn't particularly think he was attractive b/f he left (she says he was "fat"). But she fell in love with him through the words he wrote and when he returned from WWII, he had grown like a foot and was svelt. And even though she says she was "sold" before she saw him, she said seeing him sealed the deal.

Amazing.

Now with my grandfather gone, and my grandmother still able to get around pretty well at 85, I see that she had it all with my grandfather. They built their own little life. Summers in Mich. Mimi being the planner, Bapa working all the time, but making time for the family whenever he could. Their travels. Their adventures. Their world. While their choices may not be my choices in life, I do respect that they decided to do it together. Everything was together for them. Now Mimi can sit and relax and watch her grandchildren and great grandchild life and run and work and make their own ways in world so different than hers. And she can rest in knowing that she and Bapa have shown us that devoting yourself to those you love is the most important decision you can make. Those you love. Whoever they are.