Generations

It's a small thing, but very important to me - tonight we had the occasion of a family gathering - meaning, of course, a gathering of Beautiful Wife's family for a rememberance of their father. There's BW, her brother D., and her sister, T. - between the three families represented there are six adults and six children. We all gathered at Mr. Chow's on 57th street, and had a few drinks and dinner and talked about family things and skiing trips and the things that kids do, and somewhere in the course of the evening someone said "we're the next generation", meaning the we are doing what our parents did when they were raising us. It's a hard thing to describe. but it got to me in a way that I can't shake.
I come from a small family - Mom, Dad, sisters Tysh and Linda. All I ever really remember is that ideal nuclear family, with visits to my grammy (and her crazy chihuahuas) every once in a while. I'm so happy that Dear Alex will have a more robust family (too many aunts, uncles, cousins to count) to learn about and share life with - as I've said before, I'm a lucky man.
This goes on, of course, because family has become so very important, and it really is something to celebrate - I desperately miss my father and mother and wish that they could have known this wonderful child, and that she might have known them for the wonderful people that they were. Over time, of course, I will tell Dear Alex about them - her other grandparents - the ones she'll never know. That sounds a little bleak, I know, but this isn't really about that - It's more about family and what it means to know that you've got people that care one way or another what happens to you and yours. I've got that - from my sisters to my sisters-in-law to my brothers-in-law to my beautiful wife and the ever present Grammy and George, who baby-sat tonight so that we could have a family moment (without them).