We traveled to Michigan for some gratitude-on-location, a lovely quick weekend with family that we see far too infrequently.
Here's my grateful list from our time away:
I am grateful for this wonderful family, shaped of people who could have gone their separate ways: stepmothers, "second wives," cousins growing up in separate states, separate lives. But we didn't. This little bit of family has chosen to stay related, in love if not in blood, and I am so grateful for these women who have been a part of my childhood and continue to hold me in their hearts. I am grateful for my amazing little cousins, James and Laura, for how they have grown, for the tiny children I still see in them, for the inspiring adults they have become, brave and smart and true. I am grateful for my Aunt Mary, giver of the best hugs and owner of the most beautiful and generous heart. I am grateful for my Grandma Jan, now Great-grandma to my children, for her unfailing kindness and careful hospitality, for her shelves upon shelves of photos that tie generations together and shelter so many memories. I am grateful for that flood of memories, for a chance to step back into my younger self, into all those visits to Grandpa and Jan's house, walks through the development, reading and reading and reading, talking and laughing with my family. I am grateful for the love that I come from, for the warmth and joy that I have been given in my life. I am grateful that I can bring my own children into this circle, that they will have memories of Grandma's smile, of Mary's hugs, to bolster their hearts, too.
I am grateful for this moment in time, carved out of our busy lives, to stop and remember and be together with people, and I am grateful for my husband who drove us there to do it. I am grateful for clear, cold, smooth driving weather, for sunshine and a little bit of Christmas spirit in the air to top it all off...
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