I Understand Some Things....

....but some things I don't.

For instance, I don't understand why 75% of the time I drink coffee, it slips out of the cup and onto my shirt. I don't understand why, in an age of increased safety measures such as bicycle helmets and car seats until a child is almost fully grown, there is a general acceptance of tennis shoes with wheels on them. I don't understand why I didn't stick to a simple topic, like my classmates, who chose things such as dress codes and local school issues, for my Ministry of Writing opinon paper, but instead thought it was a good idea to tackle government-funded HMOs.

But I do understand that I know some pretty cool people.

In the past month I have been up to Altoona, PA twice. While the circumstances weren't ideal, I did get a chance to meet some very cool family members (or re-meet since I apparently met most of them before my ability to form memories became a regular facet in my brain).

What is my dad's cousin's relationship to me? Is she my second cousin? Is she my great cousin? Is she my cousin twice removed with a tulip garden? Well, anyway, her name is Sharon, and regardless of what exact relation she is to me, she is rather spectacular.

I have heard about her for years, but I had never met her. I finally did, and she's hilarious! She also understands my passion for urban ministry and took me on a short walk around the block of her church's neighborhood during the dinner after my grandma's funeral. She could have been doing a million things, but she took time out to do that for me. She really took care of my grandma and has helped my family out in so many ways. Maybe one day I'll just show up on her doorstep for a visit.

Then there's another of my dad's cousins, Tim, and his wife Jenny. They do mission work in the Dominican Republic and they live just a couple of hours outside of Chicago! I can hardly beleive these amazing people were just a train ride away all last semester and I didn't even know it!

I re-met a lot of people who loved my grandma. Usually they would say, "You must be Bill's kids" because I was standing by my brother and he "looks just like [my] dad!" One lady tried to explain her relation to me by saying how she was related to someone else, but I didn't know who that someone else was, so I just smiled and received a hug.

So many people told me that they read my stories and poems. I was very suprised at this and tried to think about what they possibly could have read, because I want to read it too! Apparently my grandma had a plethora of my writing endeavors from over the years and gladly shared them.

When Sharon spoke at the funeral, she told all the grandchildren how proud Grandma had been of us. I really didn't know Grandma was that proud of us, but now I do. Sharon might have thought she was reminding us of something we already knew, but I discovered in a bright, new light more of how pround of all of us Grandma really was.

I'm really rather blessed to have such a great family. My dad has about a bazillion cousins (Grandma had 9 others brothers and sisters who had kids) and I couldn't list them all if I tried. Yet, it was rather neat to re-meet all these people who remembered me, even if I felt like I was seeing them for the first time. Plus I got to meet a good childhood friend of my dad's who helped my father coerce their children's Sunday School class into continually electing them as President and Vice-President, and letting any challengers "know how it was" in that class.

I got to see a family tree from Grandma's side of the family. Her parents were both born in 1882, so I was born 100 years- to the year- after my great-grandparents. You know what else? My grandma once told me her grandfather had been in the ministry. So I am going into the same vocation as my great, great grandpa.

I have long since been interested in my family history, now I really want to explore it. Maybe one of my ancestors buried a trunk with an obsene amount of money, even by today's standards, as a type of fund for their, great, great, great, great grandaughter to pay off her college loans. Yea, and maybe I'm related to the queen of England.