How do you define your family?

For a long time I was neglectful of family. They were just all there and always there. Siblings, parents, cousins and aunts.

Sure a couple of grandparents shuffled off the heap – top or bottom depending on how you looked at it. But there was still at least a generation between me and the edge of the thing.

Then a parent pops off (must be the top then, like the ladder runs out of rungs) and the focus sharpens.

The first time you find yourself in the front pew, that’s when you know. This is who my family is and it takes up a little space than it used to.

I’m climbing myself, it’s inevitable. The children making the bottom of this familial mound quite such a noisy place need room to grow… They only get that when we keep stepping upward. 

Upward and onward, it’s the only way.

Maybe that’s why each step up gives a clearer and clearer view of who’s in the heap, and why.

The bottom of the heap is noisy