Cousins, Aunts, and Grandmas! Oh My!

I woke up this morning to a phone call about my aunt being in the hospital. I got ready quickly and went there to wait with everyone else and see that she was okay. Fortunately, the doctor was able to take care of everything with a fairly quick procedure, and she should be back home tomorrow.

The time that I had sitting in the waiting room with my family made me think about something though. I have a lot of family members that I think of as a different relation than they really are. My Mom was the youngest of 10 kids, and the family that we are closest to are her oldest sister's family. Also, my Grandma lived with us until I was in 4th grade. This made my Grandma seem more like a second Mom. Because my Aunt is considerably older than my Mom, and because I was the same age as her grandchildren, she has often seemed like a Grandma. Some of my cousins seem like aunts and uncles, and my first cousins once removed seem like my first cousins.

All my life I've had a horrible time of trying to explain the relationships in my family to anyone else. Of course, that could also be due to the number of relatives that I have. But no matter what, I'm thankful for my family, and I'm glad that I could be close by to visit my Aunt while she was in the hospital.