Siblings

Just got back from visiting my mother and spending time with my siblings. Mom is doing a slow fade-to-black but she's given us the gift of spending time with her so we can share one more laugh, one more silly story, one more visit.

Over the past five days, I've been able to spend lots of time with my sister as well as with three of my six brothers. It's remarkable how much we love to tell stories, how many memories we share. One of us will start a story, the next chimes in and a third will finish it. We all laugh.

I was OK all week until yesterday when I was alone with Mom and we were talking about her being a Mom, the only job she ever really wanted. She made me promise that all eight of us will look out for one another, and I know that in our own ways, we will.

But that habit of looking after is larger than just the eight of us. It includes the families we've formed, our children, and our friends. As Louis Armstrong once sang: "It's a wonderful world."