FAMILY
Family.....................
"In the blink of an eye, everything can change. So forgive often and love with all your heart. You may never have that chance again."
These words rang true in my heart this weekend.
i was fortunate enough to be able to meet my brothers in Raleigh, NC our hometown this weekend for some family fun. it was their first UNC Tarheel basketball game! see the 3 of us are BIG Tarheel fans. i loved every minute of that game. i loved the look on my brothers faces as we were there. they were both in heaven. i loved how at the end of each segment about Carolina on the jumbo tron they ended it with Dean Smith. we met him once! on a flight back home from NYC when we were all very young Dean and his family were on the same flight as my family. my youngest brother, tony, and his daughter were running up and down the isles of the plane and tony pushed her down and kissed her. needless to say my dad was loving that!
After that fabulous WIN over Florida State we went to one of our favorite restaurants in Raleigh,
The Pit!
We love this place! If you ever get the chance to visit you have got to start with these BBQ fries! Oh my goodness. It's BBQ pork, scallions and melted pimento cheese on top of fries with a side of BBQ ranch for your dipping pleasure. It's definitely a party in your mouth! Now not that anyone other than Tony and myself can tell you because we didn't give anyone else the chance to eat any.
Then you have got to finish with Cameron's favorite banana pudding.
We decided to just hang out Saturday night and chill in the hotel room. Sunday was a different story. I was not prepared for the surge of emotions that would overcome me. We got up and all agreed we wanted to visit the cemetery. We wanted to visit the resting place of three of the most influential people in our lives. Then off to visit our uncle who we had not seen in quite sometime.
Our dad. It's amazing how he instilled that love for Carolina basketball in all three of us. the interesting part to that was we were only 12, 8 and 4 when he passed away yet we still carry on that tradition of pulling for Carolina even 28 years later. it had me thinking today about how different our lives would have been if he hadn't passed and not that the thought doesn't pass through my head from time to time because it does. it always will. especially when faced with troubled times. our lives with him were so short yet for me i still miss him. i was the oldest so i remember him the most and that doesn't say much considering the age i was. my dad was so big on his "familia". we were his life. and typing these words just brings so many waves of emotions rushing over me. i don't think you ever get over it. there will forever be a void in my life that will never be able to be filled. that's something i'm still teaching myself. i hate my children didn't have him as a grandfather. i'm sad for them never having the chance to have had that love from him. i look at my youngest brother and think we both had such different childhoods because of that loss. things before and after were so different.
Nana and Pop-pop. These two will come up through out my blog because for me were the two biggest influences in my life. having had them through 2009 and 2011 my heart bleeds for them often. i often wonder what hurts most, having them for just a short time in your life and loosing or having them for a large part of your life and loosing them. there are pros and cons to both sides. i know they aren't at the cemetery but something about visiting just made me feel a little bit closer to them. it also opened a surge of emotions. i can't even put into words how much i miss them.
Next stop, Uncle Marty. Uncle Marty is a man my grandmother took in when he was around 20. He isn't my blood but blood doesn't always make someone family. my brothers and I walked in the place where he lives now, an assisted living home, looking for him. we found him in an activities room and i have to say i wasn't sure he was going to remember us. bj walked in first, then me, then tony. when he saw us he lit up with the biggest smile. he remembered us and it made my heart swell. we sat and talked with him about us being little and hanging with him on his porch. he loves music, he was a DJ in NY when he was younger. the blues has his heart though. bj pulled up some on Pandora and once again he lit up with that smile. we've got to find him an iPod and download pandora for him to be able to listen to it. before we left he told us the three of you made my day.......but the truth be told he made mine. it was the perfect ending to the weekend for me. his childlike innocence and demeanor, his love of music, stuffed animals, a weather radio (he would always let us know when a big storm was coming and to be prepared) and his harmonica will be how i remember him. so thank you uncle marty for making my day. it's good to know somethings never change.
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