"Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882)

Friday, December 29, 2006

No new running stuff.... but to continue my post-christmas string of post(s);

i still am amazed when i receive a comment from people just searching the internet for stuff. George, thanks for the comment. Keep up the fight, and hopefully more and more survivors will be found. My efforts with local ACS and Relay for Life have taught me so much about support and community. Also, my page-a-day calender today mentions that per capita, americans volunteer more time than any other country.

Movin' on

Saturday was my day with Dad and rest of the family. My Aunt Jane, see previous post, is actually the ex-wife of my Uncle Dave, my dad's brother. They've been divorced about 20 yrs but she has always been part of the family. She helped Mom through her cancer. She never misses a birthday card for the kids and even throws a couple dollars in the card for them.

She has told me it's cause their grandmother can't, so she does. It's small, but means so much cause she's always just done it.

My Uncle Dave was always the uncle i was most familiar with. He's stands about 6'5" and to a small child he was bigger than life, and still is to my inner child. Alas, he's had his share of personal demons to deal with, and seems happy living in Grand Rapids area, but we rarely see each other.

He was able to attend our family Chrismas on Saturday. Unfortunately his wife could not, but he was there. As we all got ready to leave, i wished him a happy Christmas, knowing Christmas Day was still two days away. He replied, it already is, cause he was able to spend it with his family. Fun Guv thought he was choking back a tear as he said it. The moment touched me greatly. Like i typed earlier, we rarely get to see each other.

Anyway, back to Aunt Jane. She took the moment to give Uncle Dave and gift to give to their Granddaughter. It was small token, but on his way back to GR, he was stopping at their sons to visit for Christmas and see his granddaughter. It was a little impromptu, ok very impromtu, so he was unprepared to take anything.

i don't think any smaller gesture could be any more meaningful. An ex-wife to give a gift to an ex-husband to give to their grandchild. Fun Guv and i are both children of divorce, so we've seen the worse-case scenarios.

This wasn't it. This was no pretense. How many ex-es would have used this moment against another ex? How many ex-es would have used this moment as leverage to play favorite?

She didn't, and that's why Aunt Jane is Aunt Jane, and not ex-Aunt Jane. That's family.

Just a couple small moments that made this holiday season different.

More to follow....

thanks again for reading, through my terribly self-indulgent therapy riddled post(s)

4 comments:

SRR said...

But you can come through a divorce and still be in one piece, right? ...seriously...

Mike said...

oh yeah, i think you can. i was more hit with the giving-ness of my Aunt.

Fun Guv said...

Actually that gift that Aunt Jane gave to Uncle Dave was to help warm him up to his granddaughter whom he hadn't seen in 2 years (she's about 2.5), Aunt Jane visits her often.

In the 16 years I've known/been with Mike this is only the 3rd time I've met Uncle Dave. Yes you can come thru divorce in once piece, but the tension that was always between these two was very noticeable. This time was different, there was no visable tension, the two of them actually sat on the same couch, and talked and laughed together with the family and they even gave each other a hug before they left. Now that is the true magic of the holidays.

It also raised my admiration of Aunt Jane even more. As long as I have known her she has always been a kind, caring and giving person; even when things in her own life weren't always easy.

SRR said...

Hmmmm...thanks for that info on divorce...I will tuck that away and refer to it later. Ultimately you want what's best for everyone I would assume...