Wonderment...And Heartache

There was nothing better growing up than coming from a large, close & loving family. Not just with ten brothers and sisters but with nearly twice as many uncles and aunts on both my dad's side of the family and my mother's. Add in what seems like hundreds of first cousins and you get the idea of growing up in the Kelly-O'Brien family. Irish Catholic to the core! Perhaps a bit more Irish than Catholic for some today but the memories of both still linger for us all. The holidays, the birthdays; the visits. They were all amazingly special in a way that some may never understand, but amazing they were. Yet, life happens. We get older, we get grayer, we hopefully get wiser; and in the process we begin to say goodbye. For the wonderment of such a family is also its heartache. So many to love and so many to loose. Earlier this month we said farewell to the head of yet another great Irish family line, my Uncle Bill Halloran, my mother’s brother-in-law. Then just yesterday my mom’s own brother Charlie, the last of her generation. Heartache. But for those of us who remain we hold on to the wonderment. The wonderment of the family that they both helped build. The brothers, sisters, cousins….the families that they now build to hopefully create that same wonderment that my generation has known. Because that wonderment will be the only thing to help lessen that inevitable heartache.