Family

Family.

Family is very important to me. It always has been. When I was younger, my mother had cancer. She fought it and fought it. As she became more and more ravaged by the disease, I took more and more of the responsibility's on myself, because of my love for her. It was a child's love. A love and an empathy felt for the woman who raised me who was being delt a vicious and hard hand. She dealt with it well. She fought to the end, but not out of fear of death. She fought out of love for her children, her family. She was the very model of what a mother should be. Firm. Strong. Loving. Kind. Disciplining when necessary and holding to her heart always. But she lost her battle in 1995. I lost my grandpa Barton and my mother in the same year. My oldest brother lived in Colorado (I am from Oregon), my oldest sister had gone off the deep-end with drugs and other poor choices and was living in California, my closest sister at the time (Debbie, one of a pair of twins) ran away to California, my niece who lived with us was kidnapped, and my other sister soon moved out of state as well. My dad had a difficult time dealing with the loss of both his father and his wife of 30 years and was working all the time. That left just my youngest brother and I. Within the span of a year we had been separated from the majority of our family. Not easy for a 13 and 10 year old. But we managed.

We held together and eventually built relationships with more distant relatives as well as growing and maintaining long distance relationships with our other brother and sisters. We grew to know better our uncles and aunts, cousins and family friends. People, especially our church family, showed a great deal of support for us and it helped to carry us through. Eventually our oldest brother moved back to the same town we live in and then to a larger city about 40 minutes away. He got married. Dad remarried. I married. My youngest brother married. We grew our family again. And now, 16 years later, we are having a redoux. We lost our closest uncle (uncle Kenny, an absolutely amazing man) to liver cancer. We lost our greatest cousin, whom we lovingly called Uncle Bob. We had recently lost one of our closest family friends, Greg Fischer, to a brain anurism. We lost our Aunt Pat to old age. We lost Grandma Barton to old age. Our Uncle Jerry just last week had a heart attack and had to be revived. Dad is in poor health. Most of his brother's and sister's are growing very old. Our oldest brother is most likely moving 1/2 way across the U.S. because his wife found a job out there. We are losing our base of stability all over again, and it sucks.

But you know what? I can deal with it. I live like I'm dying. I love as deep as I can. I join every function I can. I make it to every event I can. Is it sometimes NOT what I would first choose? You bet your buns. I would like nothing more most of the time, than to sit on my couch and watch cartoons with my kids. Do I feel better for having participated though? Yes I do. Because I know, that to live for God, you have to live for others. To enjoy and understand love, you have to show love. To find happiness, is to accept that in granting happiness and support to others is to love, and in showing love you are receiving the some of the most wonderful blessings ever created: Happiness. Contentment. Love. In giving of yourself, you receive that which most people desire for themselves. Loving yourself first can never grant you a lasting happiness. Loving others does. When you finally let go of desires of self, satisfaction flows in like the water from a burst dam. When you concentrate on yourself, it's like making a dam. It holds you back from that which you are so fervently trying to obtain. But the love you can give yourself absolutely pales in comparison to what love given to you from others is. Being selfish simply cannot grant you that deep sense of peace inducing happiness that being happy for others does. I'm living proof.

And so when I go through all of this again, I do not fear. I do not resent. I do not hesitate. I keep loving. And in that action, I guarantee myself a continuing peace I never want to lose.

Thank you God, for my family. Past, present, and future. And thank you Lord, for teaching me to put others first, and blessing me for it. For though I do not do it for the reward, I certainly appreciate it.

If you have the chance to spend time with your family and friends, do so. Because you never know when they will be taken from you, or when you will be taken from them. A child's song tells it best:

"J.O.Y. this must surely mean: Jesus first, and yourself last, and others in between"!