Stretching Cycles of Years

Photos 2015 and 1982

The above photo was taken December 28, 2015. Mom with her granddaughters. One daughter born to each of her daughters. At some point my sisters and I realized that the ages of our daughters matched our age spread - pretty close anyway. 12 years between Rachel and I, 9 years between Becka and Rachel, and 3 years between Becka and I. I love all the hands in the photo. Mom’s French manicure. And knowing it was taken at a pretty good Christmas gathering at the Big House. Early on in our living there it was, just before a kitchen remodel, so their bedroom was still off the little kitchen and we were all still shoe-horned into the mansion-turned tri-plex making jokes about doing the best with what we got. Those were challenging years. We lived there as 3 families from May 31st of 2013 until June 31st of 2017. It didn’t go exactly as planned, but there was a definate romance to the time period. And it is working out, the parents (as we sisters have always called them in order to negotiate our stepfamily chaos of names) live in the third floor apartment now, while Rachel and family have the middle floor and the main floor is shared space. It’s wonderful that the parents are not on their own. They have had the last 8 years or so to spend winter months away visiting Becka and friends and Mexico, to live efficiently with their grandchildren, and now they have the support while we go into this next phase whatever it ends up looking like. Living together requires forgiveness. Being a family requires forgiveness.