"Family First" Defined

They say “it takes a village to raise a child.” With me, that was very true. My “village” was my family. I was lucky enough to be born at the perfect time. I grew up with a HUGE family, and although I didn’t get a little brother until I was almost eleven, I always was surrounded with lots of cousins my age and I benefited from that immensely. It’s a shame that nowadays, there are so many broken homes or divided families or just very different, non-traditional families. I am a traditionalist and a conventionalist. By no means was my childhood perfect, but I always felt safe, I always felt secure, and I always felt loved. My parents had a lot of help from all my relatives and that added so much to my childhood. I am not writing this to talk politics (I did enough of that with my "Conservative Values" Defined blog), I just want to express how grateful I am for having that cohesive home life, filled with culture and religion and, as I said, most importantly—love. I was taught the importance of family and friends, and that’s been engrained in me, and will never diminish. Most folks who are raised Italian-American like I was can easily relate to that. It's the times you spend with your loved ones that are the most precious and treasured, because life is too short, and the time you have together doesn't last forever. This was instilled in me since I was very young. Besides having both parents at home, I was fortunate enough to know and love two sets of grandparents, as well as a wonderful great-grandmother and great-grandfather. Both my grandfathers and great-grandparents have passed on now but my two grandmothers are still with us, thank God. I grew up with ten first cousins from five sets of aunts and uncles. My Godfather always visited, along with lots of second cousins, great uncles and aunts, and distant relatives from Long Island to Canada to Italy. And of course, there were always friends who were just like family, always around. When I moved out of my parents’ house, things changed a little, for lots of reasons. While we all tried to remain close, people moved away and grew apart. The bond never died though, and it never will. I still see my cousins and extended family at all the holidays and other get-togethers that we have throughout the year, but I wish I could see them more like we used to when we were all kids. As I said, things change, everyone tends to go their own ways, and unfortunately in this crazy world we live in, nothing can be as great as it was when we were young. If you can keep that connection and always maintain that through the phone and over things like facebook, that's very important. Of course, you always have the wonderful memories. And I hope to create many more memories in the future for my kids.