"That's what I meant," said Pippin. "We Hobbits ought to stick together, and we will."
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings
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| Paper dolls 5-18-14 |
"You are stuck with me till the world falls to pieces..."
-- Ottilie Weber, End of the Line
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Time for true confessions.
True confession #1: I am really, really, really lazy and careless when it comes to family togetherness. Aside from the three guys who live in my own house, I can be pretty damned lackadaisical and a whole lot of who-gives-a-fuck when it comes to family visits and birthday parties and holidays and events and family ties and shit.
True confession #2: I hate that about myself.
After my dad passed away almost 10 years ago, as my kids have grown older and busier, as my sisters have moved farther apart and as their kids have grown older and busier -- there's been "drift" -- it's grown harder and harder to get too jazzed about that kind of stuff.
But I have this brother in law, Russ.
Russ and my sister live in California, which is far, far away.
Unlike me, though, Russ doesn't let drift happen. Russ gets extremely jazzed about maintaining family togetherness. He is the kind of guy who'll fly to Michigan from California, then buzz down to Ohio and visit us because he happens to be in Michigan. It's not on his way. It's not convenient. But he does it anyway. It's that important to him.
He did it yesterday.
Russ set aside the better part of the day to drive all the way here so he could have a couple of hours with my sons, his nephews. And then he drove all the way back to Detroit to catch a flight home to California.
At first I was all like, "Who does that? Wouldn't it be a lot easier for him to just go to Detroit? Sit in the airport and read a book, for chrissakes." And then I answered my own question. "Russ does that." It's who he is. He's the guy who tries to hold us all together.
He's the self-appointed family glue.
So Russ drove down and we went to our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant. It was nice, catching each other up on what everybody's been up to, over Kafta rolls and hummus instead of over the phone or the internet.
Left to me, we'd all just keep drifting apart and lazy-ass me would probably just let it happen.
But luckily, we have Russ. He's like the skewer in the Kafta kebab.
Without him the whole thing might fall apart.
So it's a good thing we have him to hold that shit together.
