Far too often, extended families do not get together. Growing up, I can remember large family gatherings at my dad’s parent’s house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes it was held there, other times at another family member’s, however the
thought was always to be a large family gathering. After my paternal grandparents died, there was less incentive on the part of some more distant relatives to journey down to the Los Angeles area.
It seems now that the only large family gatherings we do is at weddings and funerals. In the 18 years since my grandmother passed away, there have been numerous weddings and funerals on the DeWitt side of my family. Three weddings I can think of (a Doug, a Franklin and a Rema), and now fourth funeral has occured. My father’s sister, Mary Sarah, passed away two weeks ago tonight. You can read the Legacy.com obit notice, or you may choose to read her youngest son’s page.
There are a few family members missing from this photo, who were at the Memorial Service last Saturday. Unfortaunatly, all of my photos are on my work machine, and not on my laptop, so we are stuck with a photo for tonight that I passed around in email. Still, almost everyone is there.
As things go, I did get to meet the youngest member of the family, Papa Bradstein’s first child. While I didn’t get a chance to hold him (lucky for my black suit I think), he does hold the same promise for the future as any other baby.
So in review, twice in the past week have I been in a car driving 800 miles in one day, twice have I worn my suit and tie. It’s time to do something better this week.
