"I don't care how poor a man is;
if he has family, he's rich."
~Dan Wilcox and Thad Mumford, "Identity Crisis," M*A*S*H
On March 20,1999 Levi, Josef, and I officially became a family. We started out with carelessness, passion, and a great deal of love and not a whole lot of money. Some things don't really change- we are still careless, and passionate, we have even more love than we started with and we will never have lots of money. Eleven years, three boys, eight Addresses, and six jobs later here we are doing the best we can to make it all work.
Families are funny in a way. You usually start out with two people wanted to share a lifetime together. Then you add in a child or more. Maybe that's the point when it get a little crazy, not only do you have two different people trying to make a life, then you add in some perfect strangers that have your nose, or your curly hair, or your same love for silly jokes. After a few similarities though they really are uniquely their own persons, full of some purpose you can't even imagine, and you are in charge of getting them from infancy to brilliance, without doing too much damage. They call this family, this group of people made from love, trying to figure out the world and one another, all within the walls of a place called home. Home, like a tiny little universe all it's own, providing a perfect little petri dish for understanding all the good and bad things about relationships and life.
Although family means struggles, and arguments, and yells of "He's touching me!" it also means something much more-you are forever connected to these people. Through the bad and good you are bond by blood, and love, shared circumstance, and the comforting knowledge that forever is made richer when we are together.
