One of the many images we have during the Christmas season, other than religious ones, is that of a family gathering to share the holiday festivities. Such images generate a desire in us all for that closeness that only comes within a family, a closeness that exists more in the media than in life. My childhood, I’m sure, is not different from many others: although we had relatives, we rarely saw them.

Okay, we rarely saw them *except* during brief summer visits. There was Uncle Lance and Aunt Pat, Uncle George and Aunt Esther, Uncle Ed and Aunt Lilian, Uncle Lewis and Aunt Ella, plus cousins Ozell, Radell, Joe, Carol, EstaLee, Georgia Ruth, Walter, and Lanny, plus my brothers John and Richard, and sister Wanda, plus Mom and Dad. The summer of 1955 was the last time the entire family was together, although none of us realized it. What I also did not realize was that I was the youngest member.

That lack of contact that we experienced, seeing each other only annually, made it easy as we grew older to not realize that the passage of time was drawing us all further apart. And now, in the fall of my years, there is no one. The uncles and aunts, all gone. The cousins, all gone. Parents gone. After some searching, I managed to locate some offspring of my cousins, hoping to rekindle memories and relationships. But, no, the offspring I found knew nothing of the family members I named. Were they interested in knowing me, in pursuing some semblance of the family to revisit memories and relationships? No, I was not part of their world, and how do I blame people for disinterest when such interest was never there in their parents? Clearly, I cannot. My interests cannot be their interests. I miss having a larger family with which to share life’s experiences, but it is not to be. Once lost, it cannot be rebuilt. They’re gone.

Yet, in my loss, I can see that other perspectives abound. Find a person with a large family, and you will find a person who complains of too much family involvement. It seems we crave involvement with others, unless we have it, and then we seek time alone. Maybe the happy balance is what I already have: a loving wife, a caring son and his family. Just enough for closeness, and not so much that I would seek to be alone. We are never happy, it seems, unless we take the time to consider the other options in life. In doing so, I miss what cannot be rebuilt, yet I take solace in the world I have. And I wish the same to you.