Getting Together

This week has been a big week for my family.  Yesterday my baby brother turned 16.  He's the youngest in the family and the only boy.  We all got together Sunday evening for a family dinner, Zak and my sister's boyfriend included, and were fully prepared to have an enjoyable evening.

Of course, things didn't turn out that way, and the boys all had to run out on a last minute errand that would take a couple of hours.  This left my mum, dad, sister, and myself having dinner together for the first time since my brother was born.  There have been plenty of times when my brother's been out, but there was always a boyfriend thrown into the mix, or maybe just one of us girls were at home.  We all noticed that it was the first time in 16 years that we'd had dinner as just the four of us, and ended up talking about life before the baby.  Only instead of us talking about things before he was ever a thought, we (mainly my sister and I) ended up talking about the excitement of him being born:  what we wanted him to be named, what we were doing the day of him being born, etc.

Zak can't get over how close we are as a family.  I never really noticed growing up how we were a much closer family than the average.  We all spend time together because we want to and like to, not because we feel it's an obligation.  I don't dread the holidays with my family or having to go to a dinner party with them.  Hell, the best parties I've been to have been with them.  We all make time for each other as a group and also separately as well.  I like having one-on-one time with my mum or my sister, just as much as I like talking with my dad or listening to my brother play music. 

I think our closeness stems to the fact that we live so far away from the rest of our family.  It's forced us to rely on each other in a way that you wouldn't have to if your aunt or grandparents were just down the road or in another city, where you had the ability to see them more than once every two or three years.  We know that we'll always be there for each other.  Now that my sister and I are out of the house, and I'm married, we all have our own lives.  But it's nice that we still find ourselves wanting to get back together every once in a while.