Family...
Family is an amorphous thing. Slippery. Shifty. Never nailed down. It bends with the weight of who’s walking in, who’s walking out. Divorce cracks it open, death seals it shut, birth rewrites the script. New girlfriends drift in, wives plant themselves, husbands stumble in with baggage. And then—Goodbye, Grandma Carolyn. (Love you, Mom.)
The snapshot below isn’t just a picture—it’s proof. Proof that the word family can wear a thousand disguises. On the left, Leo’s girlfriend Sydney. Behind her, Megan—my ex. Then my son Leo. Waaaay in the back? That’s me. Then Vinnie, my other son, shoulder-to-shoulder with his wife Kaylee. Then Granny Canty and Ray—Megan’s folks. Becky picked up the tab at Weaver’s. I wasn’t hungry, but ended up with what they call “Philly cheesesteak fries” in a bowl the size of a Buick.
Holidays turned into “holiDAZE” once Mom’s health collapsed. Becky took the wheel—Thanksgiving, Easter, the occasional random Sunday. Christmas? Not so much. Scott’s (Becky’s son) kids scatter it like confetti, and besides—Christmas belongs to kids and to Christ, sometimes in reverse order.
We’ve split and glued ourselves back together more times than I can count. Separated. Divorced. Reunited. Distanced. Reconnected. Repeat cycle. The kids pulled us in at first—they wanted their grandparents. That’s why Mom and I played nice. But over time? These characters got under my skin. Ray with his never-ending yarns. Becky’s brutal one-liners, sharp enough to draw blood but softened by her laugh. Megan’s quiet grace hiding a wit that can knife you in the ribs.
Conversations flowed—two here, four over there, constantly shifting just like the family shifts through the decades. Smalltalk filled with warm smiles and sincere laughter. Sydney—no problem kids in her class where she teaches. Leo—working a 24-hour paramedic shift on no sleep, face pale, eyes red. Vinnie—smiling like the world made sense. Kaylee—beaming at his antics.
And I’m sitting there, realizing family is like Gulf Coast waves. They come. They go. They slap the shore, then slip away. Some leave in uniforms. Some walk out through courtrooms. Some step off into eternity. But the tide always returns.
What’s left behind are the seeds. The roots. The tangled mess of a tree that keeps growing whether you water it or not. Twenty-five years ago, I wouldn’t have bet a dime we’d all be enjoying each other’s company at one table. Yet here we are, a jury of misfits who somehow turned into kin.
Becky. Ray. Megan. The Springfield crew. They’ve become family. And you know what? Looking back, Grandma Carolyn would’ve wanted exactly this circus.
Because family isn’t perfect. It’s persistent.